forge

Forge Concept Commands

Codev uses forge concept commands to interact with your repository hosting platform. By default, all concepts use the GitHub CLI (gh). Projects using GitLab, Gitea, or other forges can override these commands.

Quick Start

Using a Provider Preset

Add to .codev/config.json:

{
  "forge": {
    "provider": "gitlab"
  }
}

Available providers: github (default), gitlab (uses glab CLI), gitea (uses tea CLI), linear (uses the Linear API).

linear is a hybrid provider: it serves the issue concepts, and every PR concept deliberately falls through to the gh default, because the repository itself still lives on GitHub. Only team-activity and on-it-timestamps are disabled.

Note: Non-GitHub presets are best-effort. Their CLI tools may produce output schemas that differ from GitHub's JSON contracts. Codev handles this gracefully — concepts that return non-conforming JSON are treated as unavailable (null). If a preset command doesn't work correctly for your setup, override the individual concept with a command that produces the expected output.

Overriding Individual Concepts

{
  "forge": {
    "issue-view": "glab issue view \"$CODEV_ISSUE_ID\" --output json",
    "pr-merge": "glab mr merge \"$CODEV_PR_NUMBER\" --yes"
  }
}

Combining Provider + Overrides

Manual overrides take precedence over the provider preset:

{
  "forge": {
    "provider": "gitlab",
    "issue-comment": "my-custom-comment-script $CODEV_ISSUE_ID \"$CODEV_COMMENT_BODY\""
  }
}

Resolution order: manual override > provider preset > default (github).

Disabling Concepts

Set a concept to null to disable it. The feature that uses it will gracefully degrade:

{
  "forge": {
    "team-activity": null,
    "on-it-timestamps": null
  }
}

Concepts Reference

Core Issue/PR Operations

Concept	Env Vars	Output	Description
issue-view	CODEV_ISSUE_ID	JSON	Fetch issue details
pr-list	—	JSON array	List open PRs
issue-list	—	JSON array	List issues
issue-comment	CODEV_ISSUE_ID, CODEV_COMMENT_BODY	—	Post issue comment
pr-exists	CODEV_BRANCH_NAME	truthy/falsy	Check if PR exists for branch
pr-create	CODEV_PR_TITLE, CODEV_PR_BODY, CODEV_PR_BASE, CODEV_PR_HEAD, CODEV_PR_REPO, CODEV_PR_DRAFT	JSON {number, url}	Open a PR (title + body required — set the body to "" for none; rest optional. Gitea also reads CODEV_PR_LOGIN)
pr-merge	CODEV_PR_NUMBER	—	Merge a PR
pr-search	CODEV_SEARCH_QUERY	JSON array	Search PRs
pr-view	CODEV_PR_NUMBER, CODEV_INCLUDE_COMMENTS	JSON or text	View PR details
pr-diff	CODEV_PR_NUMBER, CODEV_DIFF_NAME_ONLY	text	Get PR diff