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Searching discussions

You can search for discussions on GitHub and narrow the results using search qualifiers.

About searching for discussions

You can search for discussions globally across all of GitHub, or search for discussions within a particular organization or repository. For more information, see About searching on GitHub.

Tip

  • This article contains links to example searches on the GitHub.com website, but you can use the same search filters in any GitHub platform. In the linked example searches, replace github.com with the hostname for your GitHub platform.
  • For a list of search syntaxes that you can add to any search qualifier to further improve your results, see Understanding the search syntax.
  • Use quotations around multi-word search terms. For example, if you want to search for issues with the label "In progress," you'd search for label:"in progress". Search is not case sensitive.

Search by the title, body, or comments

With the in qualifier you can restrict your search for discussions to the title, body, or comments. You can also combine qualifiers to search a combination of title, body, or comments. When you omit the in qualifier, GitHub searches the title, body, and comments.

QualifierExample
in:titlewelcome in:title matches discussions with "welcome" in the title.
in:bodyonboard in:title,body matches discussions with "onboard" in the title or body.
in:commentsthanks in:comments matches discussions with "thanks" in the comments for the discussion.

Search within a user's or organization's repositories

To search discussions in all repositories owned by a certain user or organization, you can use the user or org qualifier. To search discussions in a specific repository, you can use the repo qualifier.

QualifierExample
user:USERNAMEuser:octocat feedback matches discussions with the word "feedback" from repositories owned by @octocat.
org:ORGNAMEorg:github matches discussions in repositories owned by the GitHub organization.
repo:USERNAME/REPOSITORYrepo:nodejs/node created:<2021-01-01 matches discussions from @nodejs' Node.js runtime project that were created before January 2021.

Search by open or closed state

You can filter discussions based on whether they're open or closed using the is qualifier.

QualifierExample
is:openperformance is:open is:discussion matches open discussions with the word "performance."
is:closedandroid is:closed matches closed discussions with the word "android."

Search based on whether a discussion was answered

You can search for a discussion that has been answered using the is qualifier.

QualifierExample
is:answeredperformance is:answered is:discussion matches answered discussions with the word "performance."
is:unansweredandroid is:unanswered matches unanswered discussions with the word "android."

Search based on whether a discussion is locked

You can search for a discussion that has been locked using the is qualifier. For more information, see Moderating discussions.

QualifierExample
is:locked"code of conduct" is:locked is:discussion matches discussions with the words "code of conduct" that have been locked.
is:unlockedcode of conduct is:unlocked is:discussion matches discussions with the words "code of conduct" that are unlocked.

Filter by repository visibility

You can filter by the visibility of the repository containing the discussions using the is qualifier. For more information, see About repositories.

QualifierExample
is:publicis:public matches discussions in public repositories.
is:privateis:private tiramisu matches discussions that contain the word "tiramisu" in private repositories you can access.

Search by author

The author qualifier finds discussions created by a certain user.

QualifierExample
author:USERNAMEcool author:octocat matches discussions with the word "cool" that were created by @octocat.
in:body author:USERNAMEbootstrap in:body author:octocat matches discussions created by @octocat that contain the word "bootstrap" in the body.