GitHub PR Creation

Create well-structured pull requests using gh pr create with consistent formatting and conventions.

Prerequisites

1. gh CLI is installed and authenticated
2. Current directory is a git repository
3. Changes are committed and on a feature branch (not main or master)

Workflow

1. Check prerequisites

# Determine branches
current_branch=$(git branch --show-current)
base_branch=${BASE_BRANCH:-$(gh repo view --json defaultBranchRef --jq '.defaultBranchRef.name')}

printf 'current=%s base=%s\n' "$current_branch" "$base_branch"

If the current branch matches the default/base branch, stop before pushing and ask the user to create a feature branch first.

Once on a feature branch, ensure it is pushed to remote:

git push -u origin HEAD

2. Determine PR type

Infer the type from the branch name prefix:

If the branch name doesn't match a known prefix, ask the user what type of PR this is.

3. Generate PR title

Convert the branch name to a conventional commit-style title:

• feat/add-user-auth → feat: add user auth
• fix/login-crash → fix: login crash
• hotfix/null-pointer → fix: null pointer

Replace hyphens with spaces. Drop the prefix category from the branch name. Capitalise only where appropriate.

If the branch has a single commit, prefer the commit message as the title instead.

4. Fill the PR body

Read the matching template from assets/ and fill it in based on the changes:

• Feature → [assets/feature.md](assets/feature.md)
• Bugfix → [assets/bugfix.md](assets/bugfix.md)
• Hotfix → [assets/hotfix.md](assets/hotfix.md)
• Chore → use the feature template

To understand what changed, run:

# See commits on this branch
base_branch=${BASE_BRANCH:-$(gh repo view --json defaultBranchRef --jq '.defaultBranchRef.name')}
git log --oneline "$base_branch"..HEAD

# See the full diff
git diff "$base_branch"...HEAD --stat
git diff "$base_branch"...HEAD

Fill in the template sections with concrete details from the diff. Remove HTML comments. Do not leave placeholder text.

5. Set reviewers

If a CODEOWNERS file exists, read it to identify who should review:

cat .github/CODEOWNERS 2>/dev/null || cat CODEOWNERS 2>/dev/null || cat docs/CODEOWNERS 2>/dev/null

Parse CODEOWNERS conservatively. GitHub accepts usernames and team slugs as reviewers, but not email addresses or comments. If ownership is broad, ambiguous, or path-specific in a way that does not clearly match the diff, ask the user who should review.

Before creating the PR, verify requested labels exist:

gh label list --limit 200 --json name --jq '.[].name'

Only pass labels that exist. If the intended label is missing, ask whether to omit it or create it. Use the --reviewer flag only with validated usernames or team slugs; ask the user when reviewers are ambiguous.

6. Create the PR

gh pr create \
  --title "feat: add user auth" \
  --body "$(cat <<'EOF'
## Summary

Added user authentication using OAuth2...

## Changes

- Added auth middleware
- Created login/logout endpoints

## Test Plan

- Ran full test suite
- Manual testing against staging

## Checklist

- [x] Changes are scoped to the feature described above
- [x] Tests added or updated
- [x] No unrelated changes included
EOF
)" \
  --label "enhancement" \
  --reviewer "username"

Always use a heredoc for the body to preserve formatting.

7. Report back

After creating the PR, show the user:

• The PR URL
• Title and labels applied
• Who was assigned to review

Conventions

• One PR per feature/fix — don't bundle unrelated changes
• Keep diffs small — if the diff is large (>500 lines), suggest splitting
• Draft PRs — use --draft if the work is still in progress
• Base branch — default to the repository default branch from gh repo view; use --base if targeting a different branch