GitHub Issues

The GitHub Issues integration lets workflows use GitHub Issues as a project issue tracker - creating, searching, and closing issues in response to events from other integrations (GitHub pushes, Linear webhooks, CI failures). It complements the main GitHub integration, which handles repository and pull-request operations.

Current limitations

What you can do

• Create and manage issues in GitHub repositories
• Search and filter issues by label, assignee, milestone, and state
• Open and close issues from workflow steps
• Add comments to issues
• Bind a Rensei project to GitHub Issues as its default issue tracker

Setup

Workflow nodes

GitHub Issues uses the generic issue tracker interface. All nodes require a connected GitHub Issues integration and a project bound to a repository.

Create an issue from a Linear event

trigger:
  type: trigger.linear.issue.created

steps:
  - id: mirror_to_github
    type: issue.create
    inputs:
      repo: "owner/repo"
      title: "{{ $trigger.linear.issue.title }}"
      body: |
        Synced from Linear: {{ $trigger.linear.issue.url }}

        {{ $trigger.linear.issue.description }}
      labels: ["{{ $trigger.linear.issue.priority | lower }}", "linear-sync"]

Close issues when a PR merges

trigger:
  type: trigger.github.pull_request
  filter:
    action: "closed"
    merged: true

steps:
  - id: close_linked
    type: issue.update
    inputs:
      repo: "{{ $trigger.github.repository.full_name }}"
      issueNumber: "{{ $trigger.github.pull_request.closes_issues[0] }}"
      state: "closed"

Create an issue on CI failure

trigger:
  type: trigger.github_actions.workflow_run
  filter:
    conclusion: "failure"
    head_branch: "main"

steps:
  - id: file_issue
    type: issue.create
    inputs:
      repo: "owner/repo"
      title: "CI failure: {{ $trigger.github_actions.workflow_name }} on main"
      body: |
        GitHub Actions reported a failure on main.

        - **Workflow:** {{ $trigger.github_actions.workflow_name }}
        - **Run:** {{ $trigger.github_actions.run_url }}
        - **Branch:** {{ $trigger.github_actions.head_branch }}
      labels: ["ci-failure", "needs-triage"]
      assignees: []

Credential and permissions

GitHub Issues reuses the credential from the main GitHub integration. No separate token is needed. Ensure the GitHub App has been granted issue read/write access to the target repositories during the App installation step.

The GitHub App installation grants these permissions:

• issues: write - create, update, and close issues
• issues: read - search and fetch issues

Troubleshooting

"GitHub App not installed"

Go to Settings → Integrations → GitHub Issues and click Install GitHub App. If you have already installed the app but see this error, check that the installation covers the target repository (not just selected repos that exclude it).

"Integration disabled"

Your Rensei operator has not enabled the GitHub Issues integration flag. Contact your admin.

"Permission denied on issue update"

Verify the GitHub App's repository access covers the target repo. If you selected specific repositories during installation, you may need to update the app installation to include the new repo.

"Issues not appearing after create"

The issue.create node is synchronous - the issue is created before the workflow step completes. If the issue does not appear, check the step output for error details in Sessions → Inspector → Step log.

Next steps

• GitHub integration - Repository and pull-request operations
• Project trackers - Bind GitHub Issues to a Rensei project
• Workflow triggers - Trigger workflows on GitHub and Linear events
• GitHub Actions - Trigger issue creation from CI failures