Reading Pull Requests

Reading Pull Requests

Finds and displays pull request information for a given branch using the GitHub CLI.

Prerequisites

• GitHub CLI (gh) must be installed and authenticated
• Run gh auth status to verify authentication

Finding PRs for a Branch

To find pull requests associated with a branch:

gh pr list --head <branch-name>

To include closed/merged PRs:

gh pr list --head <branch-name> --state all

Reading PR Details

Once you have a PR number, read its details:

Summary View (filtered fields)

gh pr view <pr-number> --json number,title,body,state,reviewDecision,mergedAt,url,author,reviews | jq '{
  number,
  title,
  body,
  state,
  reviewDecision,
  mergedAt,
  url,
  author: .author.login,
  reviews: [.reviews[] | {author: .author.login, state}]
}'

Full View (all details)

# Human-readable summary
gh pr view <pr-number>

# Full JSON with all fields
gh pr view <pr-number> --json number,title,body,state,author,reviewDecision,reviews,comments,labels,assignees,milestone,mergedAt,mergedBy,closedAt,createdAt,updatedAt,url,headRefName,baseRefName,isDraft,additions,deletions,changedFiles

# View PR diff
gh pr diff <pr-number>

# View PR comments
gh pr view <pr-number> --comments

Workflow

1. Ask the user for the branch name (or use the current branch with git branch --show-current)
2. Run gh pr list --head <branch-name> --state all to find associated PRs
3. If PRs are found, use gh pr view <pr-number> to read details
4. Present the PR information to the user

Viewing PR Checks Status

To see the status of CI checks on a PR:

# View checks summary
gh pr checks <pr-number>

# Watch checks in real-time until they complete
gh pr checks <pr-number> --watch

Useful Options

• --repo <owner/repo>: Specify repository if not in a git directory
• --json <fields>: Output as JSON with specific fields
• --jq <expression>: Filter JSON output