Microsoft Scout setup problem — what to try next

The question

Hi, i have review your guide about Microsoft Scout but i have this problem. https://github.com/microsoft/scout-resources/issues/17 Could you give me an advice to resolve this problem?

Thanks

The answer

Hi Julio — thanks for the detail and the linked issue, that really helps pin it down.

The key clue is in your own note: gh auth login works fine in PowerShell, but Scout still says it “could not verify your GitHub sign-in state.” That’s a different failure from the usual “ask your admin to enable Scout” gate — your org side is fine; the block is on the GitHub-verify step, which runs after your Microsoft 365 sign-in succeeds. It almost always means Scout is reading a different GitHub identity — or an un-authorised token — than the seat you expect.

I’ve just added a dedicated section to the setup guide walking through it end to end: 👉 GitHub sign-in could not be completed — troubleshooting

The short version, in the order I’d check:

1. Same account everywhere — the GitHub login Scout uses must be the exact one holding your Copilot seat and the one gh uses (personal-vs-work mismatch is the #1 cause).
2. Authorise the token for SSO — if your org enforces SAML SSO, a login can succeed while the token stays un-authorised: gh auth login, then gh auth refresh -h github.com, and authorise your org when prompted.
3. Reset gh — gh auth logout → gh auth login (GitHub.com → HTTPS → browser) → retry in Scout.
4. Clear stale Windows credentials — Credential Manager → Windows Credentials → remove old github.com entries → retry.
5. Confirm the Copilot Business seat is actually assigned to your GitHub login (not just available in the org).

If all five are clean and it still fails, it’s server-side — keep scout-resources#17 open, since that’s the official channel to the Scout team (my site is an independent guide, so I can’t push a product fix). Let me know which step it dies on and I’ll dig in further. 🙏