Gh

Use gh for GitHub-related tasks.

gh pr view 123 --json number,title,body,commits,files,headRefName,url

Inspect PRs And Issues

View one PR as JSON:

gh pr view 123 --json number,title,body,commits,files,headRefName,url

List open PRs:

gh pr list --state open --json number,title,headRefName,url

View one issue as JSON:

gh issue view 456 --json number,title,body,comments,url

Search GitHub

Prefer gh search for code/repo/issue/PR discovery.

Code search:

gh search code "TODO repo:owner/repo path:src" --limit 20

Repository search:

gh search repos "topic:cli language:go" --limit 20 --json name,description,url

Issue search:

gh search issues "repo:owner/repo is:issue is:open label:bug" --limit 50 --json number,title,url,state,updatedAt

PR search:

gh search prs "repo:owner/repo is:pr is:open author:alice" --limit 50 --json number,title,url,state,updatedAt

Search tips:

• Use qualifiers to reduce noise: repo:, path:, language:, is:open, author:, label:
• Start broad, then refine filters
• Combine with local search (rg) in checked-out repos when validating context

Checks And CI

View checks for a PR branch:

gh pr checks 123

View run details with links:

gh run list --limit 20

API And Automation

Use gh api when subcommands do not expose required fields.

gh api repos/:owner/:repo/pulls --method POST -f title='My PR' -f head='feature-branch' -f base='main'

Prefer machine-readable output for automation:

• Use --json where available
• Use gh api output with jq for deterministic extraction of fields like number, title, body, and url

URL Handling

When the user provides a GitHub URL, parse owner/repo/number and fetch details with gh commands instead of browser scraping.

Examples:

• PR URL -> gh pr view <number> --repo <owner>/<repo> ...
• Issue URL -> gh issue view <number> --repo <owner>/<repo> ...

Guardrails

Default to read-only operations unless the user explicitly requests mutation.

Read-only examples:

• gh pr view, gh pr list, gh pr checks
• gh issue view, gh search ..., gh run list, gh api GET calls

Mutating examples (require explicit user intent):

• gh pr create, gh pr merge, gh pr close
• gh issue create, gh issue edit, gh issue close
• gh api POST/PATCH/DELETE calls