GitHub Issue to PR Automation

Create a cron automation that watches one or more GitHub repositories for issues with a trigger label, starts an OpenHands conversation once per label event with the repository's default branch already checked out, and opens a pull request with whatever the agent produced.

The automation script is deterministic: issue discovery, label-event tracking, state persistence, the clone, the branch, the commit, the push, the pull request, the issue comments, and the clone's removal are all handled in Python. The LLM is invoked only to write the code.

The agent is told which issue to implement, not what it says. It fetches the description, the discussion, and whatever they link to itself, so nothing in the prompt goes stale between dispatch and the moment the agent reads it.

That needs read access, so the conversation is handed exactly one secret, GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN, and no MCP servers. AGENT_SECRET_NAMES stays an allow-list: the rest of the deployment's secret store is not reachable from a conversation whose instructions came from an issue.

The agent also finishes the job: it commits, pushes its branch, and opens the pull request, so the pull request appears when the agent stops rather than on the next poll. The script does not trust that it happened - when the conversation ends it asks GitHub whether the pull request exists, and opens it itself when it does not. origin still carries no credential, so every GitHub command the agent runs has to name GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN; the SDK only puts a secret in the environment of a command that mentions it, and masks it in the output.

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Prerequisites

Required secret

Verify that the following secret is set in OpenHands Settings -> Secrets:

Secret name	Token type	Minimum permissions
GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN	Classic PAT	repo, plus workflow
GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN	Fine-grained PAT	Contents: Read and write, Metadata: Read, Issues: Read and write, Pull requests: Read and write, Workflows: Read and write

The workflow scope is not optional in practice. An issue asking for a CI change is a normal issue, and GitHub rejects the whole push when a token without it touches .github/workflows/: "refusing to allow a Personal Access Token to create or update workflow ... without workflow scope". The branch is rejected in full, so the pull request never opens.

Contents write access is required because the script pushes the branch, and pull request write because it opens the pull request. A read-only token will poll happily and then fail at the point of pushing.

When several repositories are monitored, the token must cover all of them.

Check with:

curl -s https://api.github.com/user \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  | python3 -c "import json,sys; d=json.load(sys.stdin); print(d.get('login') or d.get('message'))"

If the token is missing or invalid, inform the user and stop.

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Setup Workflow

Follow these steps in order.

Step 1 - Verify GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN

Run the curl check above.

• If absent: "GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN is not set. Please add it in OpenHands Settings -> Secrets." Stop.
• If the API returns {"message": "Bad credentials"}: tell the user the token is invalid and ask them to update it. Stop.

Step 2 - Collect repositories

Ask: "Which GitHub repositories should be watched? (Format: owner/repo, e.g. myorg/backend. List several separated by commas to serve them all from one automation.)"

Validate access to each repository, and confirm the token can push:

curl -s "https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  | python3 -c "
import json, sys
d = json.load(sys.stdin)
if 'message' in d:
    print('ERROR:', d['message'])
else:
    perms = d.get('permissions', {})
    print(f\"Accessible. Default branch: {d.get('default_branch')}. Push: {perms.get('push')}\")
"

Record every accepted repository into REPOS = ["{owner}/{repo}", ...]. If one repository fails the check, say which and ask whether to continue without it. If Push: False, say that the automation cannot open pull requests there and ask for a token with write access.

Each repository is polled independently and keeps its own state, so issue numbers never collide between them. The trigger label, branch prefix, and schedule are shared; a repository needing different settings wants its own automation.

Step 3 - Collect trigger label

Ask: "Which issue label should trigger an implementation? (Press Enter for the default: openhands.)"

Record the answer as TRIGGER_LABEL. If the label does not exist yet, tell the user that GitHub will still record the event once the label is created and applied to an issue.

The automation works an issue when it sees the latest matching labeled event for that label. To ask for another attempt later, remove and re-apply the label - that opens a second branch and a second pull request rather than overwriting the first.

Step 4 - Collect the pull request mode

Ask: *"Should the pull requests be opened as drafts?

1. Draft (default) - opened as a draft, ready for a human to mark ready
2. Ready for review - opened as a normal pull request (Press Enter for Draft)"*

Map the choice to DRAFT_PULL_REQUEST (True or False).

Step 5 - Collect the branch prefix

Ask: "What branch prefix should the automation use? (Press Enter for the default: openhands/issue, which produces openhands/issue-42.)"

Record as BRANCH_PREFIX. Keep it free of spaces and of characters git rejects in a ref name.

Step 6 - Collect cron schedule

Ask: "How often should the automation poll for labelled issues? (Press Enter for the default: every 5 minutes. Use a cron expression for a different interval, e.g. 0 * * * * = hourly)"

Default: */5 * * * *.

Record as CRON_SCHEDULE.

Step 7 - Confirm the secret scope

The agent is handed GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN, because it reads the issue and its discussion itself. Ask: "Beyond the GitHub token, does the repository's build need a secret of its own - a package registry token, for example? (Press Enter for none.)"

Record the answers appended to the default, as AGENT_SECRET_NAMES = ["GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN", "NAME", ...].

Keep it an allow-list. Forwarding the whole secret store would put every credential in the deployment behind a prompt written by whoever opened the issue. If the repositories are public and you would rather the conversation held no credential at all, set the list to [] - the agent can still read a public issue unauthenticated, and private repositories then stop working.

Step 8 - Generate the automation script

Read scripts/main.py from this skill's directory. Apply exactly five constant substitutions near the top of the file:

The script also reads a config.json shipped beside it, if there is one, over these constants. That is how the catalog entry (automations/catalog/github-issue-to-pr/) configures an unmodified copy, since a declarative host cannot rewrite Python. This setup path substitutes the constants and ships no config.json, so the two never collide.

Placeholder	Replace with
REPOS = ["owner/repo"]	REPOS = ["{owner_repo}", ...] - one entry per repository collected in Step 2
TRIGGER_LABEL = "openhands"	TRIGGER_LABEL = "{trigger_label}"
BRANCH_PREFIX = "openhands/issue"	BRANCH_PREFIX = "{branch_prefix}"
DRAFT_PULL_REQUEST = True	DRAFT_PULL_REQUEST = {True or False}
AGENT_SECRET_NAMES: list[str] = []	AGENT_SECRET_NAMES: list[str] = ["{name}", ...]

Leave MAX_NEW_PER_RUN and DEFAULT_OPENHANDS_URL alone unless the user asks for a different cap or a non-default OpenHands URL.

A repository may be given as owner/repo, as a clone URL, or as an SSH remote; the script normalizes each one at startup and names the value it could not read rather than blaming the token.

Use a safe string writer such as json.dumps(value) when inserting user-provided repository names, labels, or prefixes into Python string literals. json.dumps(list_of_repos) produces the whole REPOS list safely in one step.

Write the customized script to a temporary build directory:

mkdir -p /tmp/issue-to-pr-build
# write the customized main.py to /tmp/issue-to-pr-build/main.py

Validate syntax before packaging:

python3 -m py_compile /tmp/issue-to-pr-build/main.py && echo "Syntax OK"

Fix any syntax errors before proceeding.

Step 9 - Package and upload

Determine the Automation backend URL and auth from the <RUNTIME_SERVICES> block in your system context:

• OPENHANDS_HOST: the Automation backend url_from_agent
• Auth: X-Session-API-Key: $OPENHANDS_AUTOMATION_API_KEY

tar -czf /tmp/issue-to-pr.tar.gz -C /tmp/issue-to-pr-build .

TARBALL_PATH=$(curl -s -X POST \
  "${OPENHANDS_HOST}/api/automation/v1/uploads?name=github-issue-to-pr" \
  -H "X-Session-API-Key: $OPENHANDS_AUTOMATION_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/gzip" \
  --data-binary @/tmp/issue-to-pr.tar.gz \
  | python3 -c "import json,sys; print(json.load(sys.stdin)['tarball_path'])")

echo "Uploaded: $TARBALL_PATH"

Step 10 - Register the automation

curl -s -X POST "${OPENHANDS_HOST}/api/automation/v1" \
  -H "X-Session-API-Key: $OPENHANDS_AUTOMATION_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{
    \"name\": \"GitHub Issue to PR: {repo_summary} label {trigger_label}\",
    \"trigger\": {\"type\": \"cron\", \"schedule\": \"{cron_schedule}\"},
    \"tarball_path\": \"$TARBALL_PATH\",
    \"entrypoint\": \"python3 main.py\",
    \"timeout\": 900
  }" | python3 -m json.tool

Use the single repository as {repo_summary} when there is one, and something like 3 repos when there are several. A poll clones a repository per queued issue and pushes finished branches, so the timeout allows for that; a run never waits for an agent to finish, only for it to be started.

Record the returned id.

Step 11 - Confirm

Tell the user:

✅ GitHub Issue to PR is running!

• Automation ID: {id}
• Repositories: {owner}/{repo}, ... (one line each)
• Trigger label: {trigger_label}
• Branch prefix: {branch_prefix}
• Pull requests: {draft or ready for review}
• Polling schedule: {cron_schedule}
• State file per repository: ~/.openhands/workspaces/automation-state/github_issue_to_pr_{id}_{owner}__{repo}.json

Apply the {trigger_label} label to an issue to queue an implementation. Each label event is processed once. To ask for another attempt, remove and re-apply the label - that opens a second branch and pull request.

The agent runs without GitHub credentials; the automation pushes the branch and opens the pull request once the agent has stopped.

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Runtime Behaviour (per poll)

Each cron run executes main.py, which loads config.json if the catalog shipped one, checks that git is available, resolves and validates GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN once, then processes every repository in REPOS independently. One repository failing does not stop the others; the run fails only if every repository fails.

For each repository:

1. Loads that repository's state (see references/state-schema.md) and reads its default branch.
2. Lists open issues carrying TRIGGER_LABEL, newest-updated first. Pull requests are dropped, so labelling a PR never queues an implementation.
3. For each labelled issue, up to MAX_NEW_PER_RUN new ones per run:
   • Refetches the issue so a label removed since the listing does not start work.
   • Finds the latest matching GitHub labeled event, and skips it if that event has already been tracked.
   • Picks the first free branch name, {BRANCH_PREFIX}-{number} or a numbered variant of it.
   • Clones the default branch, shallow and single-branch, into {WORKSPACE_BASE}/issue-to-pr/{owner}__{repo}/issue-{number}-{event_id}, sets the commit identity, and creates the branch. origin keeps its plain HTTPS URL, so the workspace holds no credential.
   • Starts an OpenHands conversation whose working directory is that clone, with the issue title, body, labels, and discussion in the prompt, and only the secrets named in AGENT_SECRET_NAMES attached.
   • Comments on the issue with the branch, the label event, and the conversation link.
   • Records the task with status: "active".
   • If the clone or the conversation cannot be created, the clone is removed and nothing is recorded, so the next poll retries the label event.
4. For each active task:
   • Abandons a conversation that has not reached a terminal status within two hours, comments on the issue, and reclaims its clone.
   • When the conversation reaches idle, finished, error, or stuck:
     • Adopts the pull request the agent opened, if GitHub says one exists for the branch, and comments its link on the issue. Everything below is the path taken when it does not.
     • Skips the pull request if the issue was closed meanwhile.
     • Reports the problem on the issue if the conversation ended in error or stuck.
     • Commits whatever the agent left uncommitted, on top of any commits it made itself.
     • Posts the agent's answer on the issue, and opens no pull request, when there are no commits at all - that is how an agent reports an issue too ambiguous to implement.
     • Otherwise pushes the branch, opens the pull request (draft by default, titled [#42] <issue title>, with the agent's summary and Closes #42 in the body), and comments the link on the issue.
     • A push or pull request that fails is retried on the next two polls before the task is reported as failed, so a transient GitHub error does not throw the work away.
5. Removes the clone of every finished task, but only after confirming the conversation has stopped - deleting it under a running agent would remove its working directory. When that cannot be confirmed the directory is left alone and the next poll tries again.
6. Saves that repository's state atomically.

The completion callback fires once for the whole run.

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Additional Resources

• references/state-schema.md - State JSON schema, field definitions, and the task lifecycle.
• scripts/main.py - The complete automation script. Customize the five constants at the top before packaging.

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Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Nothing is ever queued	Trigger label not present, or applied to a pull request rather than an issue	Apply the configured label to an issue
"Bad credentials" in run logs	Token expired	Rotate and update GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN
"The token cannot push to ..."	Token lacks Contents: write on that repository	Issue a token with write access, or drop the repository from REPOS
Push rejected: "refusing to allow a Personal Access Token to create or update workflow"	The change touches .github/workflows/ and the token has no workflow scope	Add the scope to the token; the next poll retries the same branch and opens the pull request
404 on repo access	Repo name wrong or no access	Re-check the entry in REPOS and the token's permissions
git is not available in the automation runtime	The runtime image has no git	Use a runtime image that ships git; the script clones, commits, and pushes with it
Issue commented "did not change any code"	The agent judged the issue too ambiguous, or made no edits	Read its answer in the comment, add the missing detail to the issue, then re-apply the label
Same issue not picked up again after new comments	Its label event was already processed	Remove and re-apply the trigger label
Agent reports it cannot push or open a PR	By design - it has no credentials	No action; the automation pushes and opens the pull request after the agent stops
A backlog of labelled issues starts slowly	MAX_NEW_PER_RUN caps how many conversations one poll starts	Wait for the next polls, or raise the cap in the script
Clones remain under issue-to-pr/	Their conversations had not stopped yet	They are removed by a later poll once the conversation is terminal