GitHub Agentic Workflows is a GitHub CLI extension that lets developers define AI-assisted repository automation in Markdown and run it through GitHub Actions. It is intended for tasks requiring interpretation or reasoning, such as issue triage, pull-request review, CI investigation, documentation maintenance, and dependency analysis. The catalogue entries provide skills and agents for working with these workflows.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to github/gh-aw. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/github/gh-aw/main/.github/skills/developer/SKILL.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/github/gh-awWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/github/gh-aw/developer)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/github/gh-aw/developer"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/github/gh-aw/developer/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/github/gh-aw/developer"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/github/gh-aw/developer.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>- NVIDIA SkillSpector warn
SkillSpector: 5 findings, up to medium
These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →
- medium MCP Rug Pull · line 56 npx commands without a version suffix (e.g. @1.0.0) create a rug-pull risk if the upstream server is compromised and publishes a malicious update.Fix: Pin the version: npx @scope/[email protected]
- medium Agent Snooping · line 99 Skill enumerates or reads other installed skills. Access to other skills' SKILL.md files or the skills directory reveals prompt instructions, capabilities, and secrets that should be invisible to peer skills.Fix: Remove all code or instructions that list or read other skills' files or directories. Skills should operate independently; cross-skill access is a privilege escalation.
- medium Agent Snooping · line 100 Skill enumerates or reads other installed skills. Access to other skills' SKILL.md files or the skills directory reveals prompt instructions, capabilities, and secrets that should be invisible to peer skills.Fix: Remove all code or instructions that list or read other skills' files or directories. Skills should operate independently; cross-skill access is a privilege escalation.
- medium Agent Snooping · line 101 Skill enumerates or reads other installed skills. Access to other skills' SKILL.md files or the skills directory reveals prompt instructions, capabilities, and secrets that should be invisible to peer skills.Fix: Remove all code or instructions that list or read other skills' files or directories. Skills should operate independently; cross-skill access is a privilege escalation.
- medium Agent Snooping · line 102 Skill enumerates or reads other installed skills. Access to other skills' SKILL.md files or the skills directory reveals prompt instructions, capabilities, and secrets that should be invisible to peer skills.Fix: Remove all code or instructions that list or read other skills' files or directories. Skills should operate independently; cross-skill access is a privilege escalation.
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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00013 | $0.00973 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00005 | $0.00389 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00003 | $0.00195 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00001 | $0.00097 |
Grade A, and why
developer 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 1mo 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.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 103 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Developer Instructions
Use this reference for gh-aw technical specs and development guidelines across code organization, validation, security, and implementation patterns.
Table of Contents
Operational Command Playbook
Use this section for the detailed day-to-day command flow that was intentionally removed from AGENTS.md to keep first-run ambient context small.
Validation checkpoints
Run validation in tiers — catch compile errors early, defer slow tests to the final pass only.
- After each significant code edit (fast, <5s — catch compile errors immediately)
make build && make fmt - Before every intermediate
report_progresscall (fast, <30s — no tests)make agent-report-progress-no-test - Before the FINAL
report_progresscall (change-scoped, includes impacted Go tests)make agent-report-progress - Before final handoff when time allows
make agent-finish
Key rule: Run
test-unitonly before the finalreport_progresscall, not before intermediate saves. The pre-PR targets scope formatting, linting, tests, and workflow drift checks to the branch changes.
Timeout budget:
make agent-report-progressshould normally finish in under 30 seconds. Workflow source or compiler changes additionally run the full workflow drift check. SetTEST_UNIT_RUN_FULL=1only when the full Go suite is required.
Change-type command matrix
- Go file changes:
make fmt - Workflow markdown changes:
make recompile - JavaScript (
*.cjs) changes:make fmt-cjs && make lint-cjs
Common focused checks from recent repository work
pkg/workflow/edits: rungo test ./pkg/workflow -count=1during iteration; narrow with-runwhen only one workflow behavior is under active change.actions/setup/js/edits: aftermake fmt-cjs && make lint-cjs, run the targetedactions/setup/js/*.test.cjssuites for the files you touched. Gateway changes commonly validate withnpx vitest run actions/setup/js/start_mcp_gateway.test.cjs.- Workflow source changes that also touch compiler or runtime code: run
make recompile, then rerun the affected focused Go or JavaScript checks before the finalmake agent-report-progress.
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.
- 1mo ago First seen · 103 lines · 13 tokens per session scan A bdd69682f02a
developer is a skill published in the GitHub repository github/gh-aw (5,406 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 13 tokens to every session and 973 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5.5. 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 2026-08-30.
Other skills, from other repositories
c-github
Interact with GitHub using the gh CLI and jq. Manage PRs, issues, repositories, and Actions workflows. Make raw API calls with gh api for anything not covered by built-in commands.
watch-pr
Watch a GitHub pull request for CI status, reviews, comments, merge conflicts, and terminal states using the gh-watch extension. Use when the user wants to monitor a PR, wait for CI, or track PR progress.
watch-tag
Watch a GitHub repository for new tags using the gh-watch extension. Use when the user wants to be notified when a tag is created, when a release is cut, or when a tag that includes a specific commit appears (e.g. "tell me when my merge ships in a release").
watch-branch
Watch a GitHub branch for new commits using the gh-watch extension. Use when the user wants to be notified when new commits are pushed to a branch, monitor main for merges, or track branch activity.
watch-commit
Watch a GitHub commit for CI status changes using the gh-watch extension. Use when the user wants to monitor a commit's CI checks, wait for a build to finish, or track CI progress on a specific SHA.
update-architecture-docs
Generate or update the architecture documentation in docs/content/architecture/. Use on "update architecture docs", "generate architecture documentation", "regenerate architecture docs", or after any structural change to the codebase.