GitHub CLI Manager

A lightweight VS Code extension that combines the core browsing experience of vscode-pull-request-github and vscode-github-actions, but uses the local GitHub CLI (gh) for every GitHub interaction.

Why this extension

GitHub's official PR and Actions extensions ship as Microsoft / GitHub marketplace builds and do not run reliably on non-Microsoft distributions of VS Code (VSCodium, Antigravity, Cursor without the MS marketplace, code-server, etc.) — they expect the built-in GitHub auth provider that those forks don't bundle.

This extension sidesteps that entirely: every GitHub call goes through your local gh binary, so there is no token to paste, no OAuth flow, and no extension-level auth settings. If gh auth status works in your terminal, this extension works.

Features

A single GitHub CLI Manager activity-bar container with three views: Accounts, Pull Requests, and Actions.

Accounts

Lists every host/account that gh auth status reports, with the active one marked. Click a row to switch accounts; the title bar exposes Sign In and Refresh.

• Sign in (gh auth login in an integrated terminal).
• Switch active account (gh auth switch).
• Refresh.

Pull Requests

Grouped into three categories:

• Waiting for My Review — PRs where you are a requested reviewer.
• Created by Me — PRs you authored.
• All Open — every open PR in the current repository.

PR details webview shows description, labels, status checks, files changed, and a merged comments+reviews timeline.

Available actions:

• Open in browser, checkout, copy URL.
• Comment, review (comment / approve / request changes).
• Merge (merge / squash / rebase), mark draft as ready, close.

Issues are intentionally not included.

Actions

Lists every workflow in the repository (active and disabled). Expand a workflow to see recent runs; expand a run to see its jobs. Conclusion icons:

• ✓ success · ✗ failure · ↻ in-progress · ⏱ queued · ⊘ cancelled

Available actions:

• Workflow: run (with optional ref input), enable / disable, open the .yml file.
• Run: re-run, re-run failed jobs, cancel (when in progress), view full logs in an editor, view failed-only logs, open in browser, copy URL.
• Job: view per-job logs.

The "Current Branch" view from the upstream Actions extension is intentionally not implemented.

Requirements

• VS Code 1.85+ (or any VSCodium-compatible fork at the same engine version)
• gh on your PATH
• A workspace folder cloned from a GitHub remote
• gh auth login completed

Configuration

Setting	Default	Description
ghCliManager.listLimit	50	Max PRs to fetch per category.
ghCliManager.workflowRunLimit	20	Max runs to show per workflow.
ghCliManager.autoRefreshSeconds	0	Auto-refresh interval in seconds (0 disables). Applies to PR and Actions views.
ghCliManager.ghPath	gh	Path to the GitHub CLI binary.

Development

npm install
npm run build           # one-shot build of dist/extension.js (esbuild)
npm run watch           # esbuild watch mode
npm run type-check      # tsc type-check only
npm test                # headless VS Code integration tests
npm run package         # produce a .vsix

Open this folder in VS Code and press F5 to launch an Extension Development Host with the extension loaded.

Tests

npm test runs integration tests in a headless VS Code instance via @vscode/test-electron. They install a fake gh binary that returns canned JSON, then assert:

• The extension activates and registers every command.
• The PR tree shows three categories, each populated from the right gh pr list invocation.
• The PR details webview opens for a given PR.
• The Actions tree lists workflows and their runs, with the correct icon for each run state (success / failure / in-progress / disabled).
• View Logs opens an editor with the run log content.
• Clipboard / re-run / cancel commands invoke gh correctly.

Note: On macOS, if ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE is exported in your shell (some IDE-spawned terminals set this), the test harness unsets it before launching VS Code. Without that, the bundled Electron binary refuses VS Code's CLI args.

How it works

Every action is implemented as a gh subcommand:

Accounts

UI action	gh command
List accounts	gh auth status (parsed)
Switch account	gh auth switch --hostname <host> --user <user>
Sign in	gh auth login (run in an integrated terminal)

Pull requests

UI action	gh command
Waiting for my review	gh pr list --state open --search "review-requested:@me" --json …
Created by me	gh pr list --state open --author @me --json …
All open	gh pr list --state open --json …
PR details	gh pr view <N> --json …
Checkout	gh pr checkout <N>
Approve / request changes / comment	gh pr review <N> --approve|--request-changes|--comment --body …
Comment	gh pr comment <N> --body …
Merge	gh pr merge <N> --merge|--squash|--rebase
Mark ready	gh pr ready <N>
Close	gh pr close <N>

Actions

UI action	gh command
List workflows	gh workflow list --all --json id,name,path,state
List runs for a workflow	gh run list --workflow <id> --json …
List jobs for a run	gh run view <id> --json jobs
Run workflow	gh workflow run <id> [--ref <ref>]
Enable / disable	gh workflow enable|disable <id>
Open workflow file	opens .github/workflows/<file> in editor
Re-run	gh run rerun <id>
Re-run failed jobs	gh run rerun <id> --failed
Cancel	gh run cancel <id>
View full run logs	gh run view <id> --log (rendered in a virtual document)
View failed-only logs	gh run view <id> --log-failed
View job logs	gh run view --log --job <job-id>

License

MIT