GitHub

Overview

Use the gh CLI to interact with GitHub. Always specify --repo owner/repo when not in a git directory.

Pull Requests

Check CI status on a PR

bash

gh pr checks <pr-number> --repo owner/repo

View PR details

bash

gh pr view <pr-number> --repo owner/repo

Review PR diff

bash

gh pr diff <pr-number> --repo owner/repo

Create a PR

bash

gh pr create --title "title" --body "$(cat <<'EOF'
## Summary
- Change description

## Test plan
- [ ] Tests pass
EOF
)"

Issues

List open issues

bash

gh issue list --repo owner/repo

View issue details

bash

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

Create an issue

bash

gh issue create --title "title" --body "description" --repo owner/repo

CI / Workflow Runs

List recent workflow runs

bash

gh run list --repo owner/repo --limit 10

View a run (see which steps failed)

bash

gh run view <run-id> --repo owner/repo

View logs for failed steps only

bash

gh run view <run-id> --repo owner/repo --log-failed

API for Advanced Queries

The gh api command accesses data not available through other subcommands:

bash

# Get PR with specific fields
gh api repos/owner/repo/pulls/55 --jq '.title, .state, .user.login'

# Get PR comments
gh api repos/owner/repo/pulls/55/comments

# Get PR review comments
gh api repos/owner/repo/pulls/55/reviews

JSON Output

Most commands support --json for structured output with --jq filtering:

bash

gh issue list --repo owner/repo --json number,title --jq '.[] | "\(.number): \(.title)"'
gh pr list --json number,title,state --jq '.[] | "\(.number): \(.title) [\(.state)]"'

Tips

•Use gh auth status to verify authentication
•Prefer gh pr view/gh pr diff over checking out PR branches for reviews
•Use --jq for precise field extraction from JSON output
•gh api supports pagination with --paginate

Red Flags

•Running gh pr merge without user confirmation
•Closing issues/PRs without explicit instruction
•Posting comments without user review