Using GitHub Apps

[skedwards88]

GitHub Apps let you extend the functionality of GitHub. Do you have a favorite messaging platform or project management tool? Do you want to build automations to reduce busy work? You can build a GitHub App to integrate GitHub with external products or to add automation within GitHub.

You can keep your GitHub App for personal use, or you can share it with the world on GitHub Marketplace.

Recently, we added more documentation to help you build and use GitHub Apps. Continue reading for highlights of how to build and use GitHub Apps, or check out the full documentation.

Tell me more about GitHub Apps

Do you want to learn more about GitHub Apps before diving in? You can learn more here.

I want to build a GitHub App right now!

To build a GitHub App, you first need to register a new GitHub App. Then, you need to write code to make your app do something. Once your code is complete, you need to decide where your app will run. (For example, you can host your app on a server, or your app can run on a device.)

You can follow this quickstart to quickly build a GitHub App that comments on pull requests. For the quickstart, we wrote the code for you. At the end of the quickstart, you can modify the GitHub App to do something other than comment on pull requests.

We also have guides that help you write code for your app:

• Building a GitHub App that responds to webhook events
• Building a "Login with GitHub" button with a GitHub App
• Building a CLI with a GitHub App
• Creating CI checks with a GitHub App

Can I use an app that someone else built?

Are you interested in consuming GitHub Apps but not building one yourself? Check out the wide array of apps on GitHub Marketplace. Developers have published apps that integrate GitHub with Slack, Jira, and more.

When you find an app that you are interested in using, you can read more here about how to install and authorize GitHub Apps.

[jevy146]

I'm so excited to look forward to it appearing

[ng-druid]

We migrated from AWS s3 to Github for file storage. Created a Github app providing a REST API to write JSON and other documents too repositories. This has provided three major advantages.

1. Inexpensive file storage.
2. Version control for all user uploaded data and documents.
3. Once released officially outside our org users will maintain complete control over their data writing to their own repos.

The only gap we have is search which is currently augmented with AWS Opensearch by writing every JSON, document to Opensearch as well.

We operate as a sustainable charity tracking our carbon emissions. We would like to see Github REST APIs provide carbon emissions in response headers to fulfill scope 3 SCI goals.

Being a sustainable charity we are dedicated to ACCURATE tracking of emissions. We track our own emissions but Github is a blackbox. A Blackbox we would like to see resolved.

HEDGE: https://github.com/rollthecloudinc/hedge
Climate Warrior App (Alpha): https://github.com/rollthecloudinc/spearhead/wiki/Climate-Warrior-Github-App-Installation-Instructions

I will add that creating this was not an easy process. Found the docs a bit difficult to follow. Also we began using the Graph API for our own org, which worked with API keys prior to a Github App. However, we soon realized that the Graph API is not compatible with Github Apps. Still need to convert some parts of the system to use the REST API instead of Graph.

[alxs2997]

I think it's great, I want to start creating GitHub Apps. 😄

[ng-druid]

Our charity has taken full advantage of Github Apps as part of our dedication to sustainable, financial responsible software practices. We have just released the climate aware app officially on the Marketplace. https://github.com/marketplace/climate-warrior-official