github

name	github
description	Work with GitHub repositories, source code, pull requests, issues, releases, Actions, and API data using the gh CLI. Use for GitHub URLs and GitHub resources.

Use gh for GitHub resources. It uses the user’s authenticated token and is preferred over curl, wget, or web_fetch for GitHub URLs.

Do not use this for non-GitHub URLs, GitHub Pages sites (*.github.io), or local Git operations like git commit and git push.

Repository code

For one file or directory, use gh api:

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

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

For broader browsing, clone and use normal file tools:

# Clone to the shared Pi GitHub repo cache
mkdir -p /tmp/pi-github-repos/owner
gh repo clone owner/repo /tmp/pi-github-repos/owner/repo -- --depth 1

Reuse /tmp/pi-github-repos/owner/repo when it already exists, but fetch and check out the requested revision before relying on its contents. For the latest default-branch revision:

git -C /tmp/pi-github-repos/owner/repo fetch --depth 1 origin HEAD
git -C /tmp/pi-github-repos/owner/repo checkout --detach FETCH_HEAD

Replace HEAD with a requested tag or branch when researching a specific version. Fetch enough additional history for git log or git blame; a depth-one clone is insufficient for historical research. Search cloned repos with find, grep, read, ls, and bash.

Common commands

# View repository metadata
gh repo view owner/repo

# List and inspect pull requests
gh pr list --repo owner/repo
gh pr view <number> --repo owner/repo --comments

# List and inspect issues
gh issue list --repo owner/repo
gh issue view <number> --repo owner/repo --comments

# Search issues and merged pull requests
gh search issues "keyword" --repo owner/repo --state all --limit 10
gh search prs "keyword" --repo owner/repo --state merged --limit 10

# List recent release tags
gh api repos/owner/repo/releases --jq '.[0:5] | .[].tag_name'