exploring-github

A command-line toolkit for exploring GitHub repositories, including their files, code, issues, pull requests, commits, and releases. It uses GitHub’s official `gh` command-line tool.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to find repositories, read and search their code, inspect issues and pull requests, review commits and releases, and understand how a GitHub codebase is organised.
Why use it?
It gives a coding agent a consistent way to inspect GitHub code and project history without relying on a separate connection service. It also keeps track of the repository, branch, and file area currently being examined.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/andrewbastin/gh-scout/exploring-github
Any agent
npx skills add AndrewBastin/gh-scout --skill exploring-github
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/AndrewBastin/gh-scout

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 60 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,702 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00060 $0.02702
Opus 5 $0.00030 $0.01351
Sonnet 5 $0.00012 $0.00540
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00270

Measured 2d ago against content hash cb4657a971dd, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

exploring-github scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/exploring-github/SKILL.md · 265 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 265 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Exploring GitHub

Explore and understand GitHub repositories using the gh CLI — a zero-dependency alternative to MCP-based GitHub context servers like gitctx.

Prerequisites

  • gh CLI installed and authenticated
  • Works with any MCP client: Claude Code, Amp, Pi, or any agent with shell access

If gh is not found or not authenticated, stop and ask the user to install/authenticate it. If a command fails for a non-blocking reason (e.g., rate limit on a non-critical call), skip it and continue.

Context State

Maintain a mental "current repo" context. Once the user specifies a repo (e.g., rust-lang/rust), use -R owner/repo on all subsequent gh commands. Track:

  • Repo: OWNER/REPO — always pass via -R
  • Branch: default branch unless user switches — pass via --branch or @ref where applicable
  • Path prefix: for scoped file navigation

Tool Reference

1. Repository Discovery & Metadata

Find/search repos:

gh search repos "<query>" --sort stars --limit 10 --json fullName,description,stargazersCount,language,updatedAt

View repo metadata:

gh repo view OWNER/REPO --json name,description,defaultBranchRef,isPrivate,diskUsage,forkCount,stargazerCount,languages,homepageUrl

List branches:

gh api repos/OWNER/REPO/branches --paginate --jq '.[].name'

2. Code Navigation

List directory contents (root or subdir):

gh api repos/OWNER/REPO/contents/PATH --jq '.[] | "\(.type)\t\(.name)\t\(.size // "")"' -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json"

For a specific branch:

gh api "repos/OWNER/REPO/contents/PATH?ref=BRANCH" --jq '.[] | "\(.type)\t\(.name)\t\(.size // "")"'

Read a file:

gh api repos/OWNER/REPO/contents/PATH -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3.raw" 2>&1 | head -500

For a specific branch:

gh api "repos/OWNER/REPO/contents/PATH?ref=BRANCH" -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3.raw" 2>&1 | head -500

Read multiple files (run in parallel): Read each file with the command above. Run multiple Bash calls in parallel for efficiency.

Read the full file on GitHub · 265 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 265 lines · 60 tokens per session scan A cb4657a971dd

Subscribe to this mod's changes

exploring-github is a skill published in the GitHub repository AndrewBastin/gh-scout (4 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 60 tokens to every session and 2,702 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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