GH CLI

Git · Reference cheat sheet

📖 Overview

GitHub CLI (gh) manages repositories, pull requests, issues, releases, and Actions from the terminal. Authenticate once, then script common GitHub workflows without leaving the repo.

🧩 Core concepts

• Auth — gh auth login stores credentials (HTTPS or SSH).
• Repo context — commands infer the GitHub remote from origin (override with -R owner/repo).
• PRs — create, checkout, review, merge from the CLI.
• Issues — list/create/close with labels and assignees.
• API — gh api for arbitrary REST/GraphQL when no subcommand exists.
• Actions — gh run list/watch for workflow runs.

💡 Examples

# Auth & status
gh auth login
gh auth status

# Repo
gh repo view
gh repo clone owner/name
gh repo create my-app --private --source=. --remote=origin --push

# Pull requests
gh pr status
gh pr list
gh pr create --title "feat: checkout" --body "$(cat <<'EOF'
## Summary
- Add checkout flow

## Test plan
- [ ] Pay with test card
EOF
)"
gh pr checkout 42
gh pr diff 42
gh pr review 42 --approve
gh pr merge 42 --squash --delete-branch

# Issues
gh issue list --label bug
gh issue create --title "Null ref on login" --body "Steps…"
gh issue close 7

# Actions
gh run list --limit 10
gh run watch
gh run view 123456 --log-failed

# API escape hatch
gh api user
gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls --jq '.[].title'

⚠️ Pitfalls

• Wrong remote/gh repo context operates on a different project — confirm with gh repo view.
• gh pr create needs a pushed branch with an upstream.
• Org SSO may require gh auth refresh -h github.com -s read:org (or similar) after login.
• Scripting merges still respects branch protection — expect interactive or admin failures.

🔗 Related

• Push
• Pull
• Branch
• Commit
• Fetch