Internal Org wide issue templates

[tsayles]

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I manage a GitHub enterprise account with one organization for a small dev team.

1. How can I standardize ISSUE_TEMPLATEs across the dozens of internal repos we have?
2. What are the effects if the {org}/.github repo is set to internal visibility?
3. Does the {org}/.github-private repo provide any functionality beyond custom agents?

[Lumb3]

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If you want to standardize issue templates across a bunch of repositories in a GitHub Enterprise organization, GitHub already gives you a built-in way to do this.

The simplest and best approach

Create a repository in your organization called .github.

GitHub automatically looks at this repo for “community health” files, including issue templates. If you put your templates in:

.github/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/

they’ll show up in every repository in the organization, as long as that repo doesn’t define its own templates. This lets you manage everything in one place instead of copying templates into dozens of repos.

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What if the .github repo is set to internal?

That’s totally fine — and actually what most Enterprise orgs do.

An internal .github repo:

• Still applies issue templates org-wide
• Works for private, internal, and public repos inside the org
• Keeps the templates editable only by org members

So there’s no downside here. You don’t need the repo to be public for any of this to work.

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What about .github-private?

For issue templates, it doesn’t really help.

.github-private isn’t used for things like issue templates or PR templates. GitHub won’t read templates from there at all. It’s mainly meant for internal GitHub features like custom Copilot agents or experiments.

So if your goal is org-wide issue templates, you can safely ignore .github-private.

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[gorewife]

You can standardize issue templates across an entire GitHub Enterprise org using built-in GitHub behavior—no automation required.

The correct approach

Create a repository named exactly:

{org}/.github

Place your templates here:

.github/
└── ISSUE_TEMPLATE/
├── bug_report.yml
├── feature_request.yml
└── config.yml

Note: .github/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/ is incorrect and will not be picked up by GitHub.

GitHub automatically applies these templates to every repository in the organization that does not define its own ISSUE_TEMPLATE. Repository-local templates override org-level defaults by design.

This same mechanism also applies to:

• PR_TEMPLATE
• SECURITY.md
• CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
• CONTRIBUTING.md

Internal visibility

An internal .github repo works exactly as expected in GitHub Enterprise:

• Applies to internal and private repositories
• Applies to public repositories within the org
• Keeps templates editable only by org members

You only need a public .github repo if you want templates exposed to external contributors on public repos. For internal dev teams, internal visibility is the correct and standard choice.

.github-private

Not relevant for issue templates.

• GitHub does not read issue templates, PR templates, or community health files from .github-private
• It is used exclusively for Copilot Enterprise configuration (custom instructions / agents)
• Placing templates there has no effect

Bottom line

• {org}/.github is the only supported way to do org-wide issue templates
• Internal visibility is fully supported and recommended for Enterprise orgs
• .github-private can be ignored unless configuring Copilot
• Any guidance suggesting nested .github/.github/ paths is incorrect

If you need enforcement beyond this, the next step is policy or automation to prevent repo

[sodiqjonovdev]

You can standardize issue templates across multiple repositories by using an organization-level .github repository. 1 .Standardizing ISSUE_TEMPLATEs • Create an {org}/.github repository. • Inside it, add .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/ and place your shared issue template files there. • These templates will automatically apply to all repositories in the organization unless a repo defines its own local templates, which will override the org-level ones. 2. Visibility of the {org}/.github repository • Setting the {org}/.github repository to internal visibility is fine for a GitHub Enterprise account. • The templates will still work for repositories within the organization. • Users outside the enterprise will not see the repository, but internal users and repos can still consume the templates as expected. 3. About {org}/.github-private • The .github-private repository does not provide additional functionality for issue templates. • Organization-wide community health files (issue templates, PR templates, contributing guidelines, etc.) are only sourced from {org}/.github. • .github-private is mainly used for features like custom Copilot agents and other internal tooling, not for repo-wide templates. In summary: use {org}/.github for shared issue templates, internal visibility is safe, and .github-private does not extend issue template capabilities.