The documentation says that I can download a release assets with:

• https://docs.github.com/en/rest/releases/assets?apiVersion=2022-11-28#get-a-release-asset

To download the asset's binary content, set the Accept header of the request to [application/octet-stream](https://docs.github.com/rest/overview/media-types). The API will either redirect the client to the location, or stream it directly if possible. API clients should handle both a 200 or 302 response.

Can I do it with this library?

I don't think this library provides a direct method to download assets, but you could use the asset's URL with a HTTP library like requests to download the asset.

This is an idea/pseudocode that might help you get started (haven't tested this)

from github import Github
import requests

g = Github("your token")
repo = g.get_repo("your repo")

# Get the specific release or terate over releases
release = repo.get_release("tag_name")

# Loop through assets in the release
for asset in release.get_assets():
    response = requests.get(asset.browser_download_url, allow_redirects=True)
    # whatever you need to do with the binary 

Hi @EnricoMi if I submit a PR would you accept this? there's a good reason why this is not included? there's a similar API also for downloading job artifacts.
Also where I can add this functionality?

    request_url = f"{__gh_base_url__}/repos/{artifact_data['repo_name']}/releases/assets/{artifact_data['id']}"
    headers = {
        "Accept": "application/octet-stream",
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {token}",
    }

    with open(destfile, "wb") as f:
        r = requests.get(request_url, headers=headers, stream=True, timeout=5)
        total_length = r.headers.get("content-length")

        if total_length is None:  # no content length header
            f.write(r.content)
        else:
            for chunk in r.iter_content(chunk_size=4096):
                f.write(chunk)

the missing functionality is to be able to set this header

      "Accept": "application/octet-stream",

There is some history:
#1541
#2445

There was a pull request:
#2624

While the browser_download_url might work for a public repository, it definitely won't for a private repo which needs proper authentication headers.

@nicola-lunghi yes, please, go ahead!

I had a local change for download_asset and requestFile that worked on code from a year or so ago. I can clean it up and submit a PR, if someone will look at it.

Will do.

Looks like there have been some changes to the repo, so will need to refactor my change to work with the changed code.

First draft is ready here: #3060

Any comments on the PR?
What is the process for review?
It looks like the project is anti- https://www.conventionalcommits.org/en/v1.0.0/ if so, it would be good to put that in the contribution guide.

If someone is looking for a quick workaround for private repositories, this is what I came up with.
It uses PyGitHub to fetch the link which is then using whatever authentication you have provided and then requests to actually fetch the unauthenticated link produced in the previous call.

def download_asset(asset: GitReleaseAsset) -> str:
    """Download a release asset.

    Args:
        asset: The release asset to download.

    """
    headers = {"Accept": "application/octet-stream"}
    (status, headers, _) = asset.requester.requestBlob("GET", asset.url, headers=headers)
    if status != 302:
        msg = f"Download failed expected 302 got {status}"
        raise Exception(msg)
    response = requests.get(headers["location"])
    if response.status_code != 200:
        msg = f"Download failed expected 200 got {response.status_code}"
        raise Exception(msg)
    return response.text