github-agent-runner

A Claude Code plugin for conversational discovery and installation of GitHub agentic workflows (gh-aw), with subscription-aware auth setup.

Status: v0.2.1 — see Releases for the changelog.

What is this?

github-agent-runner is a Claude Code plugin that helps you add AI-powered automation to any GitHub repository. It does two things:

Discover — recommends 1–3 agentic workflows from the githubnext/agentics catalog that match your repo's shape (language, CI setup, activity level, etc.).
Install — walks you through fetching, authenticating, and wiring up each workflow end-to-end, including the OAuth token tweak that makes your Claude subscription work inside GitHub Actions.

It also ships the agent-team pattern — four workflows (spec → plan → impl → review) installable in one pass via /install-agent-team. See catalog/agent-team/.

Quick start

Open your repo in Claude Code (or any coding agent) and paste:

Install the github-agent-runner plugin from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/verkyyi/github-agent-runner/main/.claude-plugin/marketplace.json and recommend workflows for this repo.

The agent will add the marketplace, install the plugin, and run /discover-workflows — pick a recommendation and it hands off to /install-workflow for the full auth + setup walkthrough.

First time? Skip discovery and try the starter. Running /install-workflow with no arguments pitches daily-repo-status — a zero-risk workflow that creates a daily GitHub issue summarizing your repo activity. It only needs read + issue-create permissions and gives you something visible on your first run before committing to anything broader.

Prefer the explicit slash-command form?

/plugin marketplace add https://raw.githubusercontent.com/verkyyi/github-agent-runner/main/.claude-plugin/marketplace.json
/plugin install github-agent-runner
/discover-workflows

Both skill names are unique, so the short form works out-of-the-box. If another installed plugin ever ships the same skill name, prefix with the plugin name: /github-agent-runner:discover-workflows.

Prerequisites

Claude Code CLI installed and authenticated
gh CLI authenticated (gh auth login)
gh aw extension installed (gh extension install githubnext/gh-aw)
A Claude Pro/Max subscription or an Anthropic API key for the installed workflows themselves — see Authentication.

Authentication

Two paths are supported:

	OAuth path (preferred)	API-key path (fallback)
Who	Claude Pro / Max subscribers	Non-subscribers
Secret	`CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN`	`ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`
Cost	Free (included in subscription)	Pay-per-token
Post-compile tweak	Required (two-pass sed)	Not needed

Full details — including the two-pass tweak rationale, verification grep counts, failure modes, and the ToS boundary explanation — are in skills/install-workflow/auth.md.

Running on this repo

This repo dogfoods daily-repo-status, update-docs, and weekly-research — a live example of what /install-workflow sets up. See the .github/workflows/ directory for the compiled .lock.yml files.

Multi-workflow patterns

Beyond the one-workflow-per-job templates above, this repo ships reference patterns for multiple workflows collaborating via the GitHub issue thread as an event bus:

agent-team — four roles (spec → plan → impl → review) coordinating through structured comment blocks and a small internal label state machine. Install all four in one pass with /install-agent-team; dispatch tasks by opening an issue and adding a single agent-team label. Use when you want visible handoffs, human override between steps, and an audit trail per task.

See it in action: verkyyi/agent-team-playground#5 — a complete spec → plan → impl → review run on a toy greet() function, with all four workflow runs linked and the reviewer's approve comment posted back on the issue thread.

Uninstall

Remove the plugin from Claude Code:

/plugin uninstall github-agent-runner
/plugin marketplace remove github-agent-runner   # if you added the marketplace

To remove workflows this plugin installed into your target repo:

gh aw remove <workflow> for each installed workflow (deletes both the .md source and the compiled .lock.yml), then commit the deletion.
gh secret delete CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN — or ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, whichever path you used — to unset the auth secret.
For agent-team specifically, also delete the seven labels: gh label delete agent-team plus gh label delete state:<name> for each of plan-needed, impl-needed, review-needed, done, blocked, and in-progress.

Nothing else is persisted — the plugin writes only to your target repo (under user approval) and holds no local state outside Claude Code's own plugin directory.

Local development

claude --plugin-dir .

Repository layout

.claude-plugin/
  plugin.json                      # plugin manifest (name, version, license)
  marketplace.json                 # self-hosted marketplace listing

skills/
  discover-workflows/SKILL.md
  install-workflow/
    SKILL.md
    auth.md                        # OAuth vs. API-key decision tree
  install-agent-team/SKILL.md      # unified installer (4 roles + labels + auth)

catalog/
  agent-team/                      # spec → plan → impl → review pattern
    README.md                      # label/comment contract + install steps
    {spec,planner,implementer,reviewer}-agent.md

.github/
  agents/agentic-workflows.agent.md
  aw/actions-lock.json             # gh-aw extension version lock
  workflows/
    agentics-maintenance.yml
    copilot-setup-steps.yml
    {daily-repo-status,update-docs,weekly-research}.{md,lock.yml}
    shared/reporting.md            # pulled verbatim from agentics

.lock.yml files are marked linguist-generated and merge=ours in .gitattributes to prevent spurious merge conflicts.

Credits

Built on two open-source projects from the GitHub Next team:

github/gh-aw — the agentic workflow compiler. Every workflow this plugin installs is a gh-aw .md source compiled by gh aw add / gh aw compile. Maintained by @pelikhan, @dsyme, and others.
githubnext/agentics — the curated workflow catalog. /discover-workflows surfaces entries from this repo; every dogfooded workflow in .github/workflows/ traces back to a source .md at githubnext/agentics/workflows/.

Pattern inspiration from superpowers by @obra — our agent-team spec → plan → impl → review loop mirrors the superpowers skill loop, reimplemented inline for headless gh-aw execution.

Plugin listed on claude-plugins.dev and ClaudePluginHub.