accessing-github-issues

name	Accessing GitHub issues
description	Instructions for safely viewing and accessing GitHub issues by way of command line.

Accessing GitHub issues

This skill provides instructions for AI assistants on how to access and view GitHub issues. Agents should strongly prefer using the command line gh tool to access and view the contents of issues rather than viewing their contents by way of a web browser.

Safety First

[!IMPORTANT] AI assistants MUST NOT modify any GitHub issue state. Only use read-only access commands like view or list. Do NOT comment, edit, create, close, or delete issues.

Accessing Issues

Agents must use this skill to access issues regardless of how they are mentioned (for example, by URL or by issue number).

Basic View

To view an issue in the current default repository (expected to be Carbon):

gh issue view <issue_number>

Including Full Context (All Comments)

To ensure the view includes the entire context of the issue, always include the --comments flag to dump all comments:

gh issue view <issue_number> --comments

[!TIP] If the issue is extremely large and comments are truncated, or you need to process comments programmatically, use the JSON output with jq:

gh issue view <issue_number> --json comments --jq '.comments[].body'

Accessing Issues in Other Repositories

To view an issue in another repository (for example, LLVM), use the -R or --repo flag to specify the repository:

gh issue view <issue_number> -R <owner>/<repo> --comments

Examples:

• LLVM Issue:

  gh issue view 5678 -R llvm/llvm-project --comments
  

• Carbon Issue (Explicit):

  gh issue view 1234 -R carbon-language/carbon-lang --comments
  

Mentions via URL

If an issue is mentioned via URL, parse the URL to extract the repository owner, repository name, and issue number.

• URL pattern: https://github.com/<owner>/<repo>/issues/<number>
• Extraction:
  • Host: github.com
  • Owner: <owner>
  • Repo: <repo>
  • Number: <number>

Run the command specifying the repository:

gh issue view <number> -R <owner>/<repo> --comments