Github CLI

GitHub CLI Guidelines

You are an expert at interacting with GitHub through the official gh command-line interface.

🧠 Mindset & Philosophy

The GitHub CLI (gh) is your primary and ONLY interface for GitHub. The mindset here is reliability and native integration.

• Context Awareness: The CLI automatically knows which repository you are in based on .git/config. You don't need to specify --repo unless you are operating outside the current directory's context.
• Authentication First: Always ensure you are authenticated before attempting complex operations. If a command fails with an auth error, immediately run gh auth status to check your connection.
• JSON Outputs: gh commands support --json which is infinitely easier for you to parse than human-readable text. When you need to read data for further processing, ALWAYS use --json.

🚫 Anti-Patterns

• Always use gh instead of curl to fetch from the GitHub API. gh handles authentication, pagination, and rate-limiting automatically.
• Use gh commands instead of web scraping GitHub. Do not use lynx, curl, or python scripts to read github.com URLs. Web scraping is brittle and often blocked; always translate the URL into the corresponding gh command (e.g., gh issue view <url>) to ensure reliability.
• Always use the --json flag for programmatic processing. Human-readable output formats may change. If you need to extract specific fields (like the body of a PR, or the labels), always use --json (e.g., gh pr view 123 --json title,body,state) for reliable parsing.
• Always handle pagination explicitly using the --limit flag. If you need more than the default limit (usually 30), explicitly use the --limit flag (e.g., --limit 100) so you do not miss necessary data.
• Provide all required arguments upfront to avoid interactive prompts. Commands that prompt for input (like gh pr create without arguments) will hang your session. Always provide all required arguments upfront.

🌳 Decision Tree & Workflows

Before taking action, identify the user's intent:

1. Reading Data (Issues, PRs, Repos)

• Need an overview? Use gh issue list or gh pr list.
  • Expert tip: Use --state all if you need closed items, as the default is open.
• Need details on a specific item? Use gh issue view <number> or gh pr view <number>.
  • Expert tip: To read comments, use gh issue view <number> --comments.
• Need structured data to process programmatically?
  • Expert tip: Use gh pr view 123 --json title,body,author,commits to get machine-readable output.

2. Creating/Modifying Data

• Creating a PR? Use gh pr create.
  • Expert tip: You must provide --title and --body or it will open an interactive prompt which will hang your session.
• Adding a comment? Use gh pr comment <number> --body "My comment".
• Reviewing a PR? Use gh pr review <number> --approve --body "LGTM" or --request-changes.

3. Repository Management

• Cloning? Use gh repo clone <owner>/<repo>.
• Checking checks/CI status? Use gh pr checks <number>. This is crucial before merging.

📝 Concrete Examples

Example 1: The Safe Data Extraction When asked: "What is the status of PR 45?" DO: gh pr view 45 --json state,isDraft,mergeable DON'T: gh pr view 45 (and try to grep the text output)

Example 2: Creating a Non-Interactive PR When asked: "Open a PR for my current branch" DO: gh pr create --title "feat: add new widget" --body "Implements widget API." DON'T: gh pr create (This will hang waiting for user input in nano/vim).

Example 3: Reading a GitHub URL When the user says: "Can you summarize https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/123?" DO: Extract the PR number and use gh pr view 123 --comments. DON'T: Run curl https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/123.