An outside collaborator is a user who is not a member of the organization but is granted access to one or more specific repositories. This role is designed to allow external individuals, such as contractors or consultants, to contribute to specific projects without giving them the broader access and visibility that an organization member would have. Their permissions are scoped strictly to the repositories to which they have been explicitly invited.

B. Outside collaborators are not considered members and are generally exempt from organization-wide identity and access management policies like SAML single sign-on (SSO).

C. Access for outside collaborators is granted on a per-repository basis. They do not have default access to any repositories, let alone all private ones.

D. Outside collaborators are explicitly distinguished from organization members and are listed in a separate "Outside collaborators" list, not the main internal member list.

1. GitHub Docs

"Roles in an organization."

Section: "Permissions for organization roles

" Sub-section: "Outside collaborators." This section states

"An outside collaborator is a person who isn't a member of your organization

but has access to one or more of your organization's repositories." This directly supports the correct answer (A) and refutes (C).

2. GitHub Docs

"Adding outside collaborators to repositories in your organization."

Section: "About outside collaborators." This document clarifies

"You can give an outside collaborator access to a repository

and the outside collaborator will be included in your organization's list of people with access to the repository." This reinforces that access is repository-specific.

3. GitHub Docs

"Viewing people's roles in an organization."

Section: "Filtering the members and outside collaborators list." This page shows that the UI provides separate filters for "Members" and "Outside collaborators

" confirming they are not listed together in the internal member list

which refutes (D).

4. GitHub Docs

"About identity and access management with SAML single sign-on."

Section: "About SAML with outside collaborators and bots." The documentation states

"Outside collaborators are not members of your organization and will not be required to authenticate using SAML SSO to access repositories they have been invited to." This directly refutes (B).