GitHub CLI Skill

Use the official GitHub CLI (gh) in Claude.ai for repository operations.

Setup

1. Install (once per session)

apt-get update && apt-get install -y gh

2. Claude.ai Network Allowlist

Add api.github.com to your project's allowed domains:

1. Go to your Claude Project settings
2. Find Network/Egress settings
3. Add api.github.com
4. Start a new chat (network settings load at conversation start)

3. Authentication

Set your GitHub PAT as an environment variable:

export GH_TOKEN="github_pat_xxxx"

Create a fine-grained PAT at: https://github.com/settings/tokens?type=beta

Verify auth:

gh auth status

Common Operations

Repository

# View repo info
gh repo view owner/repo

# Create new repo
gh repo create owner/repo --private --description "My project"

# Clone repo
gh repo clone owner/repo

# List your repos
gh repo list

Files & Commits

# Push a single file (create or update)
CONTENT=$(base64 -w 0 myfile.txt)
gh api -X PUT repos/owner/repo/contents/path/to/file.txt \
    -f message="Add file" \
    -f content="$CONTENT" \
    -f branch="main"

# Update existing file (need SHA)
SHA=$(gh api repos/owner/repo/contents/path/to/file.txt --jq '.sha')
gh api -X PUT repos/owner/repo/contents/path/to/file.txt \
    -f message="Update file" \
    -f content="$CONTENT" \
    -f sha="$SHA" \
    -f branch="main"

# Delete a file
SHA=$(gh api repos/owner/repo/contents/path/to/file.txt --jq '.sha')
gh api -X DELETE repos/owner/repo/contents/path/to/file.txt \
    -f message="Delete file" \
    -f sha="$SHA" \
    -f branch="main"

# List files in a directory
gh api repos/owner/repo/contents/path/to/dir

Branches

# List branches
gh api repos/owner/repo/branches --jq '.[].name'

# Create branch from main
SHA=$(gh api repos/owner/repo/git/refs/heads/main --jq '.object.sha')
gh api -X POST repos/owner/repo/git/refs \
    -f ref="refs/heads/feature/new-branch" \
    -f sha="$SHA"

# Delete branch
gh api -X DELETE repos/owner/repo/git/refs/heads/feature/old-branch

Pull Requests

# Create PR (from cloned repo)
gh pr create --title "My PR" --body "Description" --base main --head feature-branch

# Create PR via API (without clone)
gh api -X POST repos/owner/repo/pulls \
    -f title="My PR" \
    -f body="Description" \
    -f head="feature-branch" \
    -f base="main"

# List PRs
gh pr list --repo owner/repo

# View PR
gh pr view 123 --repo owner/repo

# Merge PR
gh pr merge 123 --repo owner/repo --squash

Issues

# Create issue
gh issue create --repo owner/repo --title "Bug" --body "Description"

# List issues
gh issue list --repo owner/repo

# Close issue
gh issue close 123 --repo owner/repo

Releases

# Create release
gh release create v1.0.0 --repo owner/repo --title "v1.0.0" --notes "Release notes"

# Create release with files
gh release create v1.0.0 ./dist/*.zip --repo owner/repo

# List releases
gh release list --repo owner/repo

Actions / Workflows

# List workflow runs
gh run list --repo owner/repo

# View run details
gh run view 12345 --repo owner/repo

# Trigger workflow
gh workflow run build.yml --repo owner/repo

Required Permissions

Fine-grained PAT

Permission	Level	For
Contents	Read and write	Files, branches
Pull requests	Read and write	PRs
Issues	Read and write	Issues
Actions	Read and write	Workflows
Metadata	Read	Auto-granted
Workflows	Read and write	Push to .github/workflows/

Classic PAT

Use repo scope for full access, or specific scopes as needed.

Tips

Use --jq for JSON parsing

gh api repos/owner/repo --jq '.default_branch'
gh api repos/owner/repo/branches --jq '.[].name'

Batch operations with xargs

# Delete multiple branches
echo -e "old-branch-1\nold-branch-2" | xargs -I {} gh api -X DELETE repos/owner/repo/git/refs/heads/{}

Check rate limits

gh api rate_limit --jq '.resources.core'

References

• GitHub CLI Manual
• GitHub REST API
• gh api command