Plugin fails to load with ssh error: "Permission denied (publickey)"

I'm configuring semantic-release in a repo, but I get the error. Plugin fails to load.

GITHUB_TOKEN is definitely passed, other plugins work correctly.

Error:

[4:00:32 PM] [semantic-release] › ✔  Loaded plugin "fail" from "@semantic-release/github"
...
...
2023-07-30T16:00:32.331Z semantic-release:get-git-auth-url Verifying ssh auth by attempting to push to  git@github.com:SylvanasCry/schema-registry-ajv.git
2023-07-30T16:00:32.421Z semantic-release:git Error: Command failed with exit code 128: git push --dry-run --no-verify git@github.com:SylvanasCry/schema-registry-ajv.git HEAD:master
git@github.com: Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.
    at makeError (file:///home/runner/work/schema-registry-ajv/schema-registry-ajv/node_modules/semantic-release/node_modules/execa/lib/error.js:60:11)

release.yml

name: Release
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master

permissions:
  contents: read # for checkout

jobs:
  release:
    name: Release
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: write # to be able to publish a GitHub release
      issues: write # to be able to comment on released issues
      pull-requests: write # to be able to comment on released pull requests
      id-token: write # to enable use of OIDC for npm provenance
    steps:
      # ...
      # ...
      # ...
      - name: Release
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          NPM_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}
        run: npm run semantic-release

package.json

  "release": {
    "branches": [
      "master"
    ],
    "plugins": [
      "@semantic-release/commit-analyzer",
      "@semantic-release/release-notes-generator",
      [
        "@semantic-release/github",
        {
          "assets": [
            { "path": "dist/index.js", "label": "Module" },
            { "path": "README.md", "label": "Documentation" },
            { "path": "CHANGELOG.md", "label": "Documentation" },
            { "path": "LICENSE", "label": "License" }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "@semantic-release/npm",
      [
        "@semantic-release/changelog",
        {
          "changelogFile": "CHANGELOG.md"
        }
      ],
      [
        "@semantic-release/git",
        {
          "assets": ["package.json", "CHANGELOG.md"],
          "message": "chore(release): ${nextRelease.version} [skip ci]\n\n${nextRelease.notes}"
        }
      ]
    ]
  },

Start with the release.yml workflow and package.json semantic-release configuration, then trace how the configured GitHub and Git plugins reach semantic-release's get-git-auth-url check. Reproduce the workflow and compare the documented token and repository authentication path with the failing dry-run; done means the release job loads its plugins without the SSH permission error.