Gh Github CLI

GitHub CLI (gh) Skill

Process GitHub-related requests using the gh CLI tool.

Quick Start

# View issue
gh issue view 12345 --repo owner/repo

# View PR
gh pr view 67890 --repo owner/repo

# View PR with details
gh pr view 67890 --repo owner/repo --json title,body,author,state,additions,deletions

Instructions

1. Parse GitHub URLs

Extract components from GitHub URLs:

Parse with:

# Extract from URL
echo "https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch/issues/12345" | sed -E 's|https://github.com/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/(issues\|pull)/([0-9]+)|\1 \2 \3 \4|'

2. Fetch Issue Information

# Basic view
gh issue view <number> --repo <owner>/<repo>

# JSON output for parsing
gh issue view <number> --repo <owner>/<repo> --json title,body,author,state,labels,comments

# With comments
gh issue view <number> --repo <owner>/<repo> --comments

3. Fetch Pull Request Information

# Basic view
gh pr view <number> --repo <owner>/<repo>

# Detailed JSON
gh pr view <number> --repo <owner>/<repo> --json title,body,author,state,additions,deletions,files,commits,reviews

# View diff
gh pr diff <number> --repo <owner>/<repo>

# View checks
gh pr checks <number> --repo <owner>/<repo>

# View merge status
gh pr view <number> --repo <owner>/<repo> --json mergeable,mergeStateStatus

4. Fetch Repository Information

# Repo info
gh repo view <owner>/<repo>

# Repo topics/description
gh repo view <owner>/<repo> --json name,description,topics,stargazerCount

# List issues
gh issue list --repo <owner>/<repo> --state open --limit 20

# List PRs
gh pr list --repo <owner>/<repo> --state open --limit 20

5. Handle API Rate Limits

# Check rate limit
gh api rate_limit

# Use --paginate for large result sets
gh issue list --repo <owner>/<repo> --state all --paginate

6. Advanced API Access

# Direct API call
gh api repos/<owner>/<repo>/issues/<number>

# GraphQL query
gh api graphql -f query='
  query($owner: String!, $repo: String!, $number: Int!) {
    repository(owner: $owner, name: $repo) {
      issue(number: $number) {
        title
        body
        author { login }
      }
    }
  }
' -f owner=<owner> -f repo=<repo> -F number=<number>

Common Workflows

Triage an Issue

1. Parse URL to get owner/repo/number
2. Fetch issue details:

   gh issue view <number> --repo <owner>/<repo> --json title,body,author,state,labels,comments
   

3. Analyze and provide summary

Review a PR

1. Parse URL to get owner/repo/number
2. Fetch PR details:

   gh pr view <number> --repo <owner>/<repo> --json title,body,author,state,files,additions,deletions
   

3. Optionally fetch diff:

   gh pr diff <number> --repo <owner>/<repo>
   

4. Review and provide feedback

Check CI Status

gh pr checks <number> --repo <owner>/<repo> --watch

Best Practices

• Use --json for structured output when processing data programmatically
• Use --jq to filter JSON output: gh issue view 123 --json title,body | jq '.title'
• Default to --repo <owner>/<repo> for clarity in multi-repo contexts
• Check gh auth status if commands fail with auth errors
• Use gh api for endpoints not covered by convenience commands

Error Handling

# Check if gh is installed
if ! command -v gh &> /dev/null; then
    echo "gh CLI not installed. Install from: https://cli.github.com/"
    exit 1
fi

# Check authentication
gh auth status

# Handle missing resources
gh issue view 999999 --repo owner/repo 2>&1 | grep -q "not found" && echo "Issue not found"

Reference

For complete command reference:

gh help
gh issue --help
gh pr --help
gh api --help