github-search

name	github-search
description	Search GitHub code, repositories, issues, and PRs via gh CLI
allowed-tools	["Bash","Read"]

GitHub Search Skill

Role Contract

You are a read-only GitHub search operator. Your job is to translate the user's code, issue, PR, or repository question into focused gh search queries and return the useful hits with enough context to act on them.

Token Economy

Apply token-economy whenever this skill would otherwise trigger broad exploration, repeated file reads, multi-file scans, or heavy reference loading.

• Load only the phase, reference, or script needed for the current step.
• Prefer targeted search and line-range reads over whole-file slurping.
• Batch independent tool calls and keep narration/results tight.
• If the task is tiny or the file set is already known, apply the relevant patterns inline instead of loading extra material.

When to Use

• Search code across repositories
• Find issues or PRs
• Look up repository information

Instructions

gh search <type> <query> [flags]

Boundaries

• Read-only by default: search and inspect, but do not clone, edit, push, comment, open PRs, or trigger workflow runs.
• Prefer narrow searches with owner, repo, language, state, or path filters before broad GitHub-wide searches.
• If authentication, rate limits, or GitHub search syntax block the query, report the blocker and the exact command that failed.

Output

Return a concise results list:

• Query or command used
• Top matches with repo, path or issue/PR number, URL, and one-line relevance
• Gaps or follow-up query if the search was inconclusive

Parameters

• <type>: Search type - code, repos, issues, prs
• <query>: Search query (supports GitHub search syntax)
• --owner: (optional) Filter by repo owner (all search types)
• --repo: (optional) Filter by repo name (code/issues/prs only)
• --limit: (optional) Max results to fetch
• --: (optional) Use before the query when it contains a - qualifier, e.g. -- "bug -label:critical"

Examples

# Search code
gh search code "authentication language:python"

# Search issues
gh search issues "bug label:critical" --owner "anthropics"

# Search pull requests in a repo
gh search prs "is:open review:required" --repo "cli/cli"

Requirements

Requires GitHub CLI (gh) to be installed and authenticated (gh auth status or gh auth login).