github_skill

Overview

This skill lets me interact with GitHub via the gh CLI to manage issues, pull requests, CI runs, and perform advanced API queries. It works across any OS or platform and assumes gh is installed and authenticated. I expect you to specify repositories explicitly when not operating inside a git directory.

How this skill works

I call gh subcommands like gh issue, gh pr, gh run, and gh api to perform operations and fetch structured outputs. For CI and workflow data I use gh run list and gh run view, and for fields not exposed by other commands I use gh api with --jq to extract specific JSON fields. Commands support --repo owner/repo when not in a repo and --json plus --jq for machine-friendly output.

When to use it

• Check CI status for a pull request or see which workflow steps failed
• List recent workflow runs for troubleshooting or auditing CI activity
• Extract specific PR or issue fields for automation or reporting
• Gather structured issue or PR data for scripts using --json and --jq
• Run advanced queries not provided by high-level gh subcommands using gh api

Best practices

• Always include --repo owner/repo when you are outside the repository directory
• Use --json and --jq to produce machine-readable outputs for reliable automation
• Prefer gh run view <id> --log-failed to focus on failing steps when debugging CI
• Limit request size with --limit or pagination to avoid rate limits and noisy output
• Authenticate gh beforehand (gh auth login) so commands that require permissions succeed

Example use cases

• Check CI status on PR #55: gh pr checks 55 --repo owner/repo
• List the last 10 workflow runs for a repo: gh run list --repo owner/repo --limit 10
• View failing step logs for a run: gh run view <run-id> --repo owner/repo --log-failed
• Fetch a PR title, state, and author: gh api repos/owner/repo/pulls/55 --jq '.title, .state, .user.login'
• Produce a concise issue list for a script: gh issue list --repo owner/repo --json number,title --jq '.[] | "(.number): (.title)"'