Github Search

github-search

Search GitHub code, repositories, issues, and pull requests with focused queries instead of broad manual browsing.

Overview

Use this skill when:

• Looking for prior art before implementing something new
• Investigating how a library is used in the wild
• Finding issues, PRs, or examples related to a bug or feature
• Comparing project patterns across repositories

Prerequisites

• GitHub CLI or an equivalent GitHub search interface is available
• Authentication is configured when searching private or rate-limited scopes

Search Workflow

1. Decide the target: code, repos, issues, or prs.
2. Build the narrowest useful query first.
3. Add filters for language, owner, repo, labels, or state.
4. Review a small high-signal result set before broadening.
5. Extract patterns, not just links.

Query Patterns

Code search

• authentication language:python
• "useEffect(" repo:owner/project language:typescript
• "from pydantic import" path:src

Repository search

• topic:observability language:go stars:>500
• framework language:typescript pushed:>2026-01-01

Issue and PR search

• memory leak is:issue is:open
• label:bug state:open repo:owner/project
• is:pr "breaking change"

Evaluation Checklist

• Is the example recent enough to reflect current APIs?
• Is the repo maintained and relevant to the target stack?
• Does the result show production usage or only toy code?
• Are there repeated patterns across multiple strong repos?

Guardrails

• Do not copy code blindly from search results
• Prefer maintained repos over the first match
• Distinguish example code from project-specific glue
• When searching issues, check whether the fix landed in code