Anonymous GitHub
Share your code and data for double-anonymous peer review — without giving your identity away.
Public instance · How it works · Self-hosting
Why
Double-anonymous review asks you to anonymize the artifact behind your paper — the code and data — exactly like the paper itself. Doing that by hand (owner, organization, repository name, logins, and every mention buried in the files) is tedious and easy to get wrong. Anonymous GitHub does it for you and serves the result behind a shareable link.
A free public instance is available at anonymous.4open.science.
What it anonymizes
- The GitHub owner, organization, and repository name
- File and directory names
- File contents of every extension (Markdown, text, source code, …), replacing a configurable list of terms
Usage
Public instance
Just open anonymous.4open.science, paste your repository URL, add the terms to hide, and share the generated link.
CLI
Anonymize a repository locally and produce an anonymized zip:
npm install -g @tdurieux/anonymous_github
anonymous_github
Self-hosting
Run your own instance with Docker
1. Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/tdurieux/anonymous_github/
cd anonymous_github
npm i
2. Configure GitHub access — create a .env file:
GITHUB_TOKEN=<GITHUB_TOKEN>
CLIENT_ID=<CLIENT_ID>
CLIENT_SECRET=<CLIENT_SECRET>
CREDENTIAL_KEYS='{"2026-09":"<base64-encoded 32-byte random key>"}'
CREDENTIAL_ACTIVE_KEY_ID=2026-09
CREDENTIAL_LEGACY_READS=false
PORT=5000
DB_USERNAME=
DB_PASSWORD=
AUTH_CALLBACK=http://localhost:5000/github/auth
GITHUB_TOKEN— create one at https://github.com/settings/tokens/new with thereposcope.CREDENTIAL_KEYS/CREDENTIAL_ACTIVE_KEY_ID— generate a key withopenssl rand -base64 32. Existing installations must follow the credential migration guide before starting this release.CLIENT_ID/CLIENT_SECRET— from a new GitHub App at https://github.com/settings/applications/new.- The App's callback must be
https://<host>/github/auth(matchingAUTH_CALLBACK).
3. Start the server
docker-compose up -d
4. Open http://localhost:5000. The port can be changed in docker-compose.yml; putting Anonymous GitHub behind nginx is recommended for HTTPS.
For an optional remote, hidden, delayed MongoDB replica and backup source, see the MongoDB replication guide.
Scope of anonymization
In double-anonymous review, the boundary of anonymization is the paper plus its online appendix — and only that. Googling part of the paper or appendix to reveal authorship is considered a deliberate attempt to break anonymity (explanation).
How it works
Anonymous GitHub either downloads the full repository and anonymizes each file, or proxies requests to GitHub on the fly. In both cases the original and anonymized versions are cached on the server, so even large repositories stay responsive.
Related tools
- gitmask — contribute anonymously to a GitHub repository.
- blind-reviews — browser add-on that hides identifying information when reviewing a pull request.
See also
License
Frontend development
The UI uses Vue 3 and Vue Router with the existing Express API. Page setup
functions live in public/script/app.js and admin.js; the Vue templates are
in public/partials/. Gulp compiles the templates and bundles the app with
esbuild, then updates the asset manifest used by Express.
Run npm run build:ui after changing a template or frontend script. Use
npm run dev:ui to serve the built UI locally with API requests proxied to the
configured upstream. npm run test:ui rebuilds the assets and runs the frontend
regression and DOM interaction tests. npm run build also builds the UI for
production.
The initial bundle contains the Vue app. Markdown extensions load on content routes; PDF.js, Ace, and notebook support load when their viewers mount. Org support loads in the repository explorer, and Mermaid loads only when a diagram is encountered. These libraries use hashed URLs and load once per tab.
The Docker build compiles the same bundles and copies them, the asset manifest, and document-worker assets into the runtime image. The Compose app serves these assets directly; no frontend development server is needed.