GitHub API Skill

You have access to the GitHub REST API via the http tool. Credentials are automatically injected — never construct Authorization headers manually. When the URL host is api.github.com, the system injects Authorization: Bearer {github_token} transparently.

API Patterns

All endpoints use https://api.github.com as the base URL. Common headers are injected automatically.

Issues

List issues:

http(method="GET", url="https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}/issues?state=open&sort=created&direction=desc&per_page=30")

Get single issue:

http(method="GET", url="https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}/issues/{number}")

Create issue:

http(method="POST", url="https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}/issues", body={"title": "...", "body": "...", "labels": ["bug"]})

Add comment:

http(method="POST", url="https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}/issues/{number}/comments", body={"body": "..."})

Pull Requests

List PRs:

http(method="GET", url="https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls?state=open&sort=created&direction=desc&per_page=30")

Create PR:

http(method="POST", url="https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls", body={"title": "...", "body": "...", "head": "feature-branch", "base": "main", "draft": true})

Get PR diff:

http(method="GET", url="https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/{number}", headers=[{"name": "Accept", "value": "application/vnd.github.v3.diff"}])

Repository

Get repo info:

http(method="GET", url="https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}")

List branches:

http(method="GET", url="https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}/branches")

List recent commits:

http(method="GET", url="https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}/commits?per_page=10")

Authenticated User & Cross-Repo Queries

When the user says "my PRs", "my issues", or "my repos", they mean the user who owns github_token. Don't try to list a single repo, hit the search/user endpoints instead.

Get the authenticated user (resolves who @me is):

http(method="GET", url="https://api.github.com/user")

My latest PRs across all repos:

http(method="GET", url="https://api.github.com/search/issues?q=is:pr+author:%40me+sort:updated-desc&per_page=20")

My open issues across all repos (assigned to me):

http(method="GET", url="https://api.github.com/search/issues?q=is:issue+is:open+assignee:%40me&per_page=20")

PRs that need my review:

http(method="GET", url="https://api.github.com/search/issues?q=is:pr+is:open+review-requested:%40me")

My repos (list all repos accessible to the token):

http(method="GET", url="https://api.github.com/user/repos?sort=updated&per_page=30")

Search

GitHub has three search endpoints. Build queries with the search syntax.

Search issues and PRs (one endpoint, filter with is:pr or is:issue):

http(method="GET", url="https://api.github.com/search/issues?q=repo:{owner}/{repo}+is:pr+is:open+label:bug")

• Note: There is no /search/pulls endpoint; /search/issues is the unified endpoint for both issues and PRs.

Search code:

http(method="GET", url="https://api.github.com/search/code?q=fn+main+language:rust+repo:{owner}/{repo}")

Search repositories:

http(method="GET", url="https://api.github.com/search/repositories?q=tetris+language:rust&sort=stars")

URL-encode @ as %40 and spaces as + in q= values.

Response Handling

The http tool returns an envelope:

{"status": 200, "headers": {...}, "body": <parsed value>}

• JSON endpoints — body is already a parsed Python dict or list. Do not call json.loads() on it. Example:

  r = await http(method="GET", url="https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/123")
  if r["status"] != 200:
      FINAL(f"GitHub returned HTTP {r['status']}: {r['body']}")
  pr = r["body"]          # dict, not a string
  title  = pr["title"]    # use direct indexing; these keys always exist on a 2xx
  state  = pr["state"]
  head   = pr["head"]["ref"]
  base   = pr["base"]["ref"]

• Diff / plain text endpoints (Accept: application/vnd.github.v3.diff etc.) — body is a str containing the raw unified diff; use it as-is.
• Never write body = pr_meta.get("body", pr_meta) as a "safety net" — it hides real errors. If status isn't 2xx, fail fast.
• For list endpoints, check the Link header for pagination.
• Rate limit: 5000 req/hour authenticated. Check X-RateLimit-Remaining if doing bulk ops.
• Error responses are JSON of the form {"message": "..."} with a non-2xx status — surface them literally in your FINAL answer.

Common Mistakes

• Do NOT add an Authorization header — it is injected automatically by the credential system.
• Always use HTTPS URLs (HTTP is blocked by the security layer).
• For creating PRs, always set draft: true unless the user explicitly says "ready for review".
• The state parameter for issues/PRs is open, closed, or all — not active/inactive.
• Use per_page to control result count (max 100). Default is 30.
• For "my PRs / my issues" across all repos, hit /search/issues?q=...+author:%40me. Do NOT loop over /repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls for every repo; that's slow and you usually don't have the full repo list.