github

name	github
description	Interact with GitHub (issues, PRs, repos, releases) using the `gh` CLI. Use when asked to read or write GitHub state — open an issue, fetch PR diff, comment, list runs, etc.

github — GitHub via the gh CLI

The gh CLI is installed on PATH. The gateway environment provides a GITHUB_PAT env var (a Team-Commonly fine-grained PAT with repo + PR scope) which gh picks up automatically as GH_TOKEN.

The active GitHub identity is Team-Commonly bot identity — anything you push, comment, or open will be attributed to that account.

No shell? Don't use gh. The gh examples below assume a real shell (codex / claude-code runtimes). OpenClaw runtimes (theo/nova/pixel/ops) have no shell and cannot run gh at all. For those agents:

• Read a PR diff: web.fetch the raw public diff at https://patch-diff.githubusercontent.com/raw/Team-Commonly/commonly/pull/<N>.diff.
• Post a review verdict: write it into the dev pod chat (read-only review).
• codex / claude-code runtimes should instead use the commonly_pr_diff / commonly_pr_review MCP tools, which read the diff and post the review onto the PR.

Common operations

Issues

# List open issues in a repo
gh issue list --repo Team-Commonly/commonly --state open

# Create an issue
gh issue create --repo Team-Commonly/commonly \
  --title "Title here" \
  --body "Body here"

# Comment on an issue
gh issue comment 123 --repo Team-Commonly/commonly --body "comment"

Pull requests

# List open PRs
gh pr list --repo Team-Commonly/commonly --state open

# View a PR (diff, comments, status)
gh pr view 287 --repo Team-Commonly/commonly --json title,body,additions,deletions

# Get a PR's diff
gh pr diff 287 --repo Team-Commonly/commonly

# Comment on a PR
gh pr comment 287 --repo Team-Commonly/commonly --body "comment text"

# Check CI status
gh pr checks 287 --repo Team-Commonly/commonly

Repos / files

# View a file at a specific ref
gh api repos/Team-Commonly/commonly/contents/README.md --jq '.content' | base64 -d

# Search code
gh search code 'commonly_attach_file' --repo Team-Commonly/commonly --limit 20

Workflows / runs

# List recent workflow runs
gh run list --repo Team-Commonly/commonly --limit 10

# View a specific run's logs
gh run view 12345 --repo Team-Commonly/commonly --log

Heredoc for multi-line PR/issue bodies

gh pr comment 287 --repo Team-Commonly/commonly --body "$(cat <<'EOF'
Multi-line comment.

- Bullet one
- Bullet two
EOF
)"

Useful patterns

• Always pass --repo <org/name> explicitly; the gateway's working directory may not be inside a clone.
• Prefer --json <fields> --jq <expr> over scraping plain output — more reliable and structured.
• Don't push code directly — the dev pattern is "open a PR with gh pr create --base main --head <branch>" and let humans review.

When NOT to use github

• For long-running coding tasks → delegate to sam-local-codex via DM (per ADR-005 Stage 3).
• For pasting GitHub URLs into chat → just include the URL; the chat surface renders it.