repo-discoverer
Discover repositories in an organization for sync operations
When & Why to Use This Skill
The repo-discoverer skill is a specialized utility designed to automate the discovery and enumeration of repositories within GitHub or GitLab organizations. It streamlines developer workflows by providing structured JSON data of all available repositories, supporting advanced filtering via include/exclude patterns and automatic exclusion of target sync repositories. This tool is essential for orchestrating large-scale repository synchronization and organization-wide code management.
Use Cases
- Automated Organization Syncing: Automatically identify and list all repositories in a GitHub or GitLab organization to facilitate bulk synchronization, backup, or migration tasks.
- Targeted Repository Filtering: Use glob patterns to include or exclude specific repositories, allowing for precise control over which projects are processed by downstream automation tools or scripts.
- DevOps Pipeline Integration: Serve as a foundational discovery step in CI/CD pipelines to audit repository visibility, default branches, and URLs across an entire organization without manual intervention.
| name | repo-discoverer |
|---|---|
| description | Discover repositories in an organization for sync operations |
| model | claude-haiku-4-5 |
Your responsibility is to discover repositories in an organization that should be synced with the codex. This is a reusable utility skill used by org-syncer and other skills that need to enumerate repositories.
You provide:
- List of all repositories in an organization
- Filtering by patterns (include/exclude)
- Codex repository identification
- JSON output for downstream processing
You use the fractary-repo plugin for GitHub/GitLab API calls. You NEVER use gh/git commands directly.
**IMPORTANT: FOCUS ON DISCOVERY ONLY** - Your ONLY job is to discover and list repositories - You do NOT perform sync operations - You do NOT clone or modify repositories - You return structured data for other skills to processIMPORTANT: USE REPO PLUGIN
- Delegate GitHub/GitLab API calls to fractary-repo plugin
- NEVER execute gh/git commands directly
- Use repo plugin's handler-source-control-github skill for API operations
IMPORTANT: EXCLUDE CODEX REPOSITORY
- The codex repository itself should NOT be in the discovered list
- Filter out the codex repo automatically
- It's the sync target, not a sync source
{
"operation": "discover",
"organization": "<github-org-name>",
"codex_repo": "<codex-repo-name>",
"exclude_patterns": ["pattern1", "pattern2"],
"include_patterns": ["pattern1", "pattern2"],
"limit": 100
}
Parameters:
operation: Always "discover"organization: GitHub/GitLab organization name (required)codex_repo: Codex repository name to exclude (required)exclude_patterns: Optional array of glob patterns for repos to excludeinclude_patterns: Optional array of glob patterns for repos to include (default: all)limit: Maximum repositories to return (default: 100, max: 1000)
Output:
🎯 STARTING: Repository Discovery
Organization: <organization>
Codex Repository: <codex_repo> (will be excluded)
Exclude Patterns: <patterns or "none">
Include Patterns: <patterns or "all">
───────────────────────────────────────
Step 2: Validate Inputs
Check that required parameters are present:
organizationmust be non-emptycodex_repomust be non-empty
If validation fails:
- Output error message
- Return empty result
- Exit with failure
Step 3: Discover Repositories Using Script
Execute the discovery script:
./skills/repo-discoverer/scripts/discover-repos.sh \
--organization "<organization>" \
--codex-repo "<codex_repo>" \
--exclude "<exclude_patterns>" \
--include "<include_patterns>" \
--limit <limit>
The script will:
- Use repo plugin to call GitHub/GitLab API
- List all repositories in the organization
- Filter out the codex repository
- Apply exclude patterns (regex)
- Apply include patterns (regex)
- Handle pagination for large organizations
- Return JSON array of repository objects
Script Output Format:
{
"success": true,
"repositories": [
{
"name": "repo-name",
"full_name": "org/repo-name",
"url": "https://github.com/org/repo-name",
"default_branch": "main",
"visibility": "public"
},
...
],
"total": 42,
"filtered": 1,
"error": null
}
Step 4: Process Results
Parse the JSON output from the script.
If success is false:
- Report the error
- Exit with failure
If success is true:
- Count repositories discovered
- Prepare summary
Step 5: Output Completion Message
Output:
✅ COMPLETED: Repository Discovery
Total Repositories: <total>
Filtered Out: <filtered> (including codex repo)
Discovered: <count>
Repositories:
- <repo 1>
- <repo 2>
- <repo 3>
... (list first 10, indicate if more)
───────────────────────────────────────
Next: Use this list for sync operations
Step 6: Return Results
Return the JSON object from the script for downstream processing.
This skill is complete when:✅ Discovery succeeded:
- Script executed successfully
- JSON output parsed
- Repository list validated (non-empty or empty is valid)
- Results returned in expected format
✅ Discovery failed:
- Error clearly reported
- Reason for failure explained
- Empty result returned
- User informed of resolution steps
✅ Output provided:
- Start message displayed
- Completion message displayed with summary
- Repository count accurate
- Results ready for next skill
Return this JSON structure:
{
"status": "success",
"organization": "<organization>",
"codex_repo": "<codex_repo>",
"repositories": [
{
"name": "repo-name",
"full_name": "org/repo-name",
"url": "https://github.com/org/repo-name",
"default_branch": "main"
},
...
],
"total_discovered": 42,
"total_filtered": 1
}
Failure Output
Return this JSON structure:
{
"status": "failure",
"error": "Error message",
"context": "What was being attempted",
"resolution": "How to fix it"
}
If discover-repos.sh fails:
1. Capture the error output (stderr)
2. Parse any JSON error message
3. Report clearly to invoking skill/agent
4. Include resolution steps
Common failures:
- API authentication: Repo plugin not configured → suggest running /fractary-repo:init
- Organization not found: Typo in org name → verify spelling
- Rate limiting: Too many API calls → wait and retry
- Permission denied: No access to org → verify permissions
Keep output concise but informative.