Github Issues

GitHub Issues

Full issue lifecycle management using the gh CLI. Every command has a curl fallback for machines without gh.

Prerequisites

• GitHub CLI: gh auth login (or set GH_TOKEN env var)
• curl fallback: set GITHUB_TOKEN and know your OWNER/REPO

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export OWNER=myorg
export REPO=myrepo
export GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_...

List Issues

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# Open issues
gh issue list

# Filter by label, assignee, state
gh issue list --state open --label bug --assignee @me

# All states
gh issue list --state all --limit 50

# curl fallback
curl -H "Authorization: token $GITHUB_TOKEN" \
  "https://api.github.com/repos/$OWNER/$REPO/issues?state=open&per_page=20"

View an Issue

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gh issue view 123

# Open in browser
gh issue view 123 --web

# curl fallback
curl -H "Authorization: token $GITHUB_TOKEN" \
  "https://api.github.com/repos/$OWNER/$REPO/issues/123"

Create an Issue

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gh issue create \
  --title "Fix null pointer in auth module" \
  --body "Steps to reproduce:\n1. ...\n2. ..." \
  --label "bug,priority:high" \
  --assignee @me

# Interactive
gh issue create

# curl fallback
curl -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: token $GITHUB_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  "https://api.github.com/repos/$OWNER/$REPO/issues" \
  -d '{"title":"Fix null pointer","body":"...","labels":["bug"]}'

Edit an Issue

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# Add label
gh issue edit 123 --add-label "priority:high"

# Remove label
gh issue edit 123 --remove-label "needs-triage"

# Change assignee
gh issue edit 123 --add-assignee username

# Set milestone
gh issue edit 123 --milestone "v2.0"

# Change title
gh issue edit 123 --title "New title"

Comment on an Issue

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gh issue comment 123 --body "Looking into this now."

# curl fallback
curl -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: token $GITHUB_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  "https://api.github.com/repos/$OWNER/$REPO/issues/123/comments" \
  -d '{"body":"Looking into this now."}'

Close / Reopen an Issue

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gh issue close 123
gh issue close 123 --reason "completed"
gh issue close 123 --comment "Fixed in #456"

gh issue reopen 123

Search Issues

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gh issue list --search "error in production"
gh issue list --search "label:bug created:>2024-01-01"

# GitHub search syntax
gh issue list --search "is:open is:issue assignee:@me"

Link Issues to PRs

Reference issues in PR body or commits:

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Fixes #123
Closes #456
Resolves #789

GitHub auto-closes linked issues when PR merges.

Bulk Operations

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# Close all issues with a label
gh issue list --label "wontfix" --json number --jq '.[].number' | \
  xargs -I{} gh issue close {} --reason "not planned"

# List issues as JSON
gh issue list --json number,title,labels,assignees --limit 100

Milestones

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# List milestones
gh api repos/$OWNER/$REPO/milestones

# Create milestone
gh api repos/$OWNER/$REPO/milestones \
  --method POST \
  -f title="v2.0" \
  -f due_on="2024-06-01T00:00:00Z"

Labels

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# List labels
gh label list

# Create label
gh label create "priority:high" --color FF0000 --description "Urgent"

# Clone labels from another repo
gh label clone owner/source-repo

Issue Templates

Create .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/bug_report.md:

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---
name: Bug Report
about: Report a bug
labels: bug
---

## Description
## Steps to Reproduce
## Expected vs Actual
## Environment