github-search_skill

Overview

This skill lets you search GitHub from the command line using the gh CLI to discover repositories, code examples, issues, and PRs. It focuses on fast repo discovery, code-pattern lookup, and finding real-world library usage with powerful query qualifiers and JSON-friendly outputs. Use it to filter by stars, language, topics, dates, and file paths for precise results.

How this skill works

The skill issues gh CLI search commands (gh search repos/code/issues/prs) or calls gh api for exact web-parity results. It supports repo-level qualifiers (stars, language, topic, pushed, created) and code-level qualifiers (extension, path, repo, filename) and can return JSON fields or open results in the browser. For complex multi-language or exclusion queries, it constructs URL-encoded gh api/search/repositories requests and extracts results with jq.

When to use it

• When you need popular or niche repositories filtered by stars, language, topics, or last activity.
• When you want real examples of how a library is used across public code (imports, function calls, file patterns).
• When searching for open issues, bug reports, or PRs by label, author, or text match.
• When gh search repos behavior differs from web results and you need exact API parity.
• When scripting or integrating search results using --json and jq for automation.

Best practices

• Quote queries that include special characters (e.g., "stars:>500") to avoid shell parsing issues.
• Use multiple language qualifiers for OR logic, and use -topic: to exclude topics like crypto.
• Prefer gh api search/repositories for complex combinations (multiple languages + exclusions + ranges).
• Request specific JSON fields with --json for reliable scripting and use --jq to extract values.
• Combine repo: and path: qualifiers to narrow code searches to relevant directories or projects.

Example use cases

• Find top Rust/Go/TypeScript projects with >500 stars but exclude blockchain-related topics.
• Search code for library usage: gh search code "from Y import" extension:py --limit=30.
• Locate recent active Python projects pushed after a date and sort by update time.
• Find open bug issues mentioning an error string across Go repos: gh search issues '"connection refused" language:go'.
• Extract repo names and star counts in JSON for a downstream report using --json and jq.