Add GitHub Channel

Adds GitHub support via the Chat SDK bridge. The agent participates in PR and issue comment threads.

Prerequisites

You need a dedicated GitHub bot account (not your personal account). The adapter uses this account to post replies and filters out its own messages to avoid loops. Create a free GitHub account for your bot (e.g. my-org-bot), then invite it as a collaborator with write access to the repos you want monitored.

Install

NanoClaw doesn't ship channels in trunk. This skill copies the GitHub adapter in from the channels branch.

Pre-flight (idempotent)

Skip to Credentials if all of these are already in place:

• src/channels/github.ts exists
• src/channels/github-registration.test.ts exists
• src/channels/index.ts contains import './github.js';
• @chat-adapter/github is listed in package.json dependencies

Otherwise continue. Every step below is safe to re-run.

1. Fetch the channels branch

git fetch origin channels

2. Copy the adapter and its registration test

git show origin/channels:src/channels/github.ts                 > src/channels/github.ts
git show origin/channels:src/channels/github-registration.test.ts > src/channels/github-registration.test.ts

3. Append the self-registration import

Append to src/channels/index.ts (skip if the line is already present):

import './github.js';

4. Install the adapter package (pinned)

pnpm install @chat-adapter/github@4.29.0

5. Build and validate

pnpm run build
pnpm exec vitest run src/channels/github-registration.test.ts

Both must be clean before proceeding. github-registration.test.ts is the one integration test: it imports the real channel barrel and asserts the registry contains github. It goes red if the import './github.js'; line is deleted or drifts, if the barrel fails to evaluate, or if @chat-adapter/github isn't installed (the import throws) — so it also implicitly verifies the dependency from step 4. The adapter also calls core's createChatSdkBridge(...); that typed core-API consumption is guarded by pnpm run build.

End-to-end message delivery against a real GitHub repo is verified manually once the service is running — see Next Steps and the webhook setup above.

Credentials

1. Create a Personal Access Token for the bot account

Log in as your bot account, then:

1. Go to Settings > Developer Settings > Personal Access Tokens
2. Create a Fine-grained token with:
   • Repository access: select the repos you want the bot to monitor
   • Permissions: Pull requests (Read & Write), Issues (Read & Write)
3. Copy the token

2. Set up a webhook on each repo

On each repo (logged in as the repo owner/admin):

1. Go to Settings > Webhooks > Add webhook
2. Payload URL: https://your-domain/webhook/github (the shared webhook server, default port 3000)
3. Content type: application/json
4. Secret: generate a random string (e.g. openssl rand -hex 20)
5. Events: select Issue comments and Pull request review comments

3. Configure environment

Add to .env:

GITHUB_TOKEN=github_pat_...
GITHUB_WEBHOOK_SECRET=your-webhook-secret
GITHUB_BOT_USERNAME=your-bot-username

GITHUB_BOT_USERNAME must match the bot account's GitHub username exactly. This is used for @-mention detection — the agent responds when someone writes @your-bot-username in a PR or issue comment.

Sync to container: mkdir -p data/env && cp .env data/env/env

Wiring

Ask the user: Is this a private or public repo?

• Private repo — use unknown_sender_policy: 'public'. Only collaborators can comment anyway, so it's safe to let all comments through.
• Public repo — use unknown_sender_policy: 'strict'. Only registered members can trigger the agent, preventing strangers from consuming agent resources. Add trusted collaborators as members (see below).

Run /manage-channels to wire the GitHub channel to an agent group, or insert manually:

-- Create messaging group (one per repo)
INSERT INTO messaging_groups (id, channel_type, platform_id, instance, name, is_group, unknown_sender_policy, created_at)
VALUES ('mg-github-myrepo', 'github', 'github:owner/repo', 'github', 'owner/repo', 1, '<policy>', datetime('now'));

-- Wire to agent group
INSERT INTO messaging_group_agents (id, messaging_group_id, agent_group_id, trigger_rules, response_scope, session_mode, priority, created_at)
VALUES ('mga-github-myrepo', 'mg-github-myrepo', '<your-agent-group-id>', '', 'all', 'per-thread', 10, datetime('now'));

Replace <policy> with public or strict based on the user's choice above.

Adding members (for strict mode)

When using strict, add each GitHub user who should be able to trigger the agent:

-- Add user (kind = 'github', id = 'github:<numeric-user-id>')
INSERT OR IGNORE INTO users (id, kind, display_name, created_at)
VALUES ('github:<user-id>', 'github', '<username>', datetime('now'));

-- Grant membership to the agent group
INSERT OR IGNORE INTO agent_group_members (user_id, agent_group_id)
VALUES ('github:<user-id>', '<agent-group-id>');

To find a GitHub user's numeric ID: gh api users/<username> --jq .id

Use per-thread session mode so each PR/issue gets its own agent session.

Next Steps

If you're in the middle of /setup, return to the setup flow now.

Otherwise, restart the service to pick up the new channel.

Run from your NanoClaw project root:

source setup/lib/install-slug.sh
launchctl kickstart -k gui/$(id -u)/$(launchd_label)  # macOS
systemctl --user restart $(systemd_unit)              # Linux

Channel Info

• type: github
• terminology: GitHub has "repositories" containing "pull requests" and "issues." Each PR or issue comment thread is a separate conversation.
• how-to-find-id: The platform ID is github:owner/repo (e.g. github:acme/backend). Each PR/issue becomes its own thread automatically.
• supports-threads: yes (PR and issue comment threads are native conversations)
• typical-use: Webhook-driven — the agent receives PR and issue comment events and responds in comment threads when @-mentioned. After the first mention, the thread is subscribed and the agent responds to all follow-up comments.
• default-isolation: Use per-thread session mode. Each PR or issue gets its own isolated agent session. Typically wire to a dedicated agent group if the repo contains sensitive code.