Organization access tokens

Table of contents
Subscription: Team Business

Organization access tokens (OATs) provide secure, programmatic access to Docker Hub for automated systems, CI/CD pipelines, and other business-critical tasks. Unlike personal access tokens tied to individual users, OATs are associated with your organization and can be managed by any organization owner.

Warning

Organization access tokens are incompatible with Docker Desktop, Image Access Management, and Registry Access Management. If you use these features, use personal access tokens instead.

Who should use organization access tokens?

Use OATs for automated systems that need Docker Hub access without depending on individual user accounts:

  • CI/CD pipelines: Build and deployment systems that push and pull images
  • Production systems: Applications that pull images during deployment
  • Monitoring tools: Systems that need to check repository status or pull images
  • Backup systems: Tools that periodically pull images for archival
  • Integration services: Third-party tools that integrate with your Docker Hub repositories

Key benefits

Benefits of using organization access tokens include:

  • Organizational ownership: Not tied to individual users who might leave the company
  • Shared management: All organization owners can create and manage OATs
  • Separate usage limits: OATs have their own Docker Hub rate limits, not counting against personal accounts
  • Better security audit: Track when tokens were last used and identify suspicious activity
  • Granular permissions: Limit access to specific repositories and operations

Prerequisites

To create and use organization access tokens, you must have:

  • A Docker Team or Business subscription
  • Owner permissions
  • Repositories you want to grant access to

Create an organization access token

Owners can create tokens with these limits:

  • Team subscription: Up to 10 OATs per organization
  • Business subscription: Up to 100 OATs per organization

Expired tokens count toward your total limit.

To create an OAT:

  1. Sign in to Docker Home and select your organization.
  2. Select Admin Console, then Access tokens.
  3. Select Generate access token.
  4. Configure token details:
    • Label: Descriptive name indicating the token's purpose
    • Description (optional): Additional details
    • Expiration date: When the token should expire
  5. Expand the Repository drop-down to set access permissions:
    1. Optional. Select Read public repositories for access to public repositories.
    2. Select Add repository and choose a repository from the drop-down.
    3. Set permissions for each repository: Image Pull or Image Push.
    4. Add up to 50 repositories as needed.
  6. Optional. Configure organization management permissions by expanding the Organization drop-down and selecting the Allow management access to this organization's resources:
    • Member Edit: Edit members of the organization
    • Member Read: Read members of the organization
    • Invite Edit: Invite members to the organization
    • Invite Read: Read invites to the organization
    • Group Edit: Edit groups of the organization
    • Group Read: Read groups of the organization
  7. Select Generate token. Copy the token that appears on the screen and save it. You won't be able to retrieve the token once you exit the screen.
Important

Treat organization access tokens like passwords. Store them securely in a credential manager and never commit them to source code repositories.

Use organization access tokens

Sign in to the Docker CLI using your organization access token:

$ docker login --username <YOUR_ORGANIZATION_NAME>
Password: [paste your OAT here]

When prompted for a password, enter your organization access token.

Modify existing tokens

To manage existing tokens:

  1. Sign in to Docker Home and select your organization.
  2. Select Admin Console, then Access tokens.
  3. Select the actions menu in the token row, you can:
    • Edit
    • Deactivate
    • Delete
  4. Select Save after making changes to a token.

Organization access token best practices

  • Regular token rotation: Set reasonable expiration dates and rotate tokens regularly to minimize security risks.
  • Principle of least privilege: Grant only the minimum repository access and permissions needed for each use case.
  • Monitor token usage: Regularly review when tokens were last used to identify unused or suspicious tokens.
  • Secure storage: Store tokens in secure credential management systems, never in plain text or source code.
  • Immediate revocation: Deactivate or delete tokens immediately if they're compromised or no longer needed.