Repos and Files

Repos and Files

Browsing Code (Preferred)

Clone the repo and use normal file tools. This is the best approach when you need to read multiple files, search code, or explore a repository structure.

# Clone to a session-scoped temp directory
clonedir="$TMPDIR/gh-clones-${CLAUDE_SESSION_ID}"
mkdir -p "$clonedir"
gh repo clone owner/repo "$clonedir/repo" -- --depth 1

# Clone a specific branch
gh repo clone owner/repo "$clonedir/repo" -- --depth 1 --branch develop

After cloning, use the Explore agent (via the Task tool with subagent_type=Explore) to explore the codebase — it can search, read, and navigate across the clone efficiently in a single invocation. For targeted lookups where you already know what you're looking for, use Read, Glob, and Grep directly.

Quick Single-File Lookup (Alternative)

When you only need one file and don't want to clone, use gh api:

# Get raw file content directly (skips base64)
gh api repos/owner/repo/contents/path/to/file.py \
  -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.raw+json"

# Get file from a specific branch/ref
gh api repos/owner/repo/contents/path/to/file.py?ref=develop \
  -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.raw+json"

# List directory contents
gh api repos/owner/repo/contents/src/ --jq '.[].name'

When to Clone vs. Use API