Discourse GitHub

[Discourse]

	Summary	Discourse GitHub Allows staff to assign badges to users based on GitHub contributions. Also allows users to create Github Linkbacks, Permalinks, and display live PR status on oneboxes.
	Install Guide	This plugin is bundled with Discourse core. There is no need to install the plugin separately.

As this is an official plugin maintained by the Discourse team, Support, Bug, UX, and Feature requests can be made in the respective categories here on Meta, and tagged with the appropriate plugin tag. Click on a link below to get one started.

 Support  Bug  UX  Feature

Features

GitHub Badges

Assign badges to your users based on GitHub contributions.

How to use:

1. Enable github badges enabled in Settings → Plugins.
2. Generate a GitHub access token and paste it into the github linkback access token setting. See below for instructions.
3. Add one or more URLs of the GitHub repos to scan for contributions to the github badges repos site setting.

How badge counting works:

Badges count commits across all repositories, and when a user contributes to multiple repos, all their commits are added together into one total count.

Committer Badges:

Badge	Commits Required
Bronze	1 commit
Silver	25 commits
Gold	1000 commits

Badge Progression: As users accumulate more contributions across any of the tracked repositories, they automatically progress through badge tiers. For example, if a user commits to Repo A and then Repo B, both contributions count toward their total, allowing them to progress from Bronze to Silver to Gold.

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GitHub Linkback

Create a link from a GitHub pull request or commit back to a Discourse post where it is mentioned.

How to use:

1. Enable github linkback enabled in Settings → Plugins.
2. Generate a GitHub access token and paste it into the github linkback access token setting. See below for instructions.
3. Finally, add the projects you wish to post to in the github linkback projects site setting in the formats:
   • username/repository for specific repositories
   • username/* for all repositories of a certain user

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GitHub Permalink

Replace GitHub non-permalinks with permalinks.

How to use:

1. Enable github permalinks enabled in Settings → Plugins.

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PR Live Status

Display live status indicators on GitHub pull request oneboxes in posts and chat messages. The status updates automatically via webhooks when PRs change on GitHub.

Status Types

Status	Color	Description
Draft	Gray	PR is marked as draft
Open	Gray	PR is open and awaiting review
Approved	Green	PR has been approved by reviewers
Changes Requested	Orange	Reviewers have requested changes
Merged	Purple	PR has been merged
Closed	Red	PR was closed without merging

How to use:

Step 1: Enable the Feature

Go to Admin > Settings > Plugins and set github pr status enabled to true.

Step 2: Configure GitHub Access Tokens

To fetch PR status (especially for private repositories), configure GitHub access tokens.

Setting: github onebox access tokens

Format:

organization_name|ghp_your_token_here
default|ghp_fallback_token_here

You can specify tokens per organization, plus a default token used as a fallback. Each line should contain org_name|token where the token is a GitHub Personal Access Token (classic) with repo scope.

Example:

discourse|ghp_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
my-company|ghp_yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
default|ghp_zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Step 3: Set Up GitHub Webhooks (for Real-Time Updates)

To get automatic status updates when PRs change, configure a webhook on GitHub.

Generate a Webhook Secret:

openssl rand -hex 32

Set the github webhook secret site setting to your generated secret.

Create the Webhook on GitHub:

You can create the webhook at the organization level (to cover all repos) or per-repository.

For an organization:

1. Go to your organization’s Settings
2. Navigate to Webhooks (under Code, planning, and automation)
3. Click Add webhook

For a repository:

1. Go to your repository’s Settings
2. Navigate to Webhooks
3. Click Add webhook

Webhook Configuration:

Field	Value
Payload URL	https://your-discourse-site.com/discourse-github/webhooks/github
Content type	application/json
Secret	Your generated webhook secret
SSL verification	Enable (recommended)
Events	Select “Let me select individual events”

Select these events:

• Pull requests
• Pull request reviews

Click Add webhook to save.

Step 4: Verify the Setup

1. Create a test post with a GitHub PR URL
2. Verify the onebox displays with a status icon
3. Change the PR status on GitHub (e.g., approve it, or close it)
4. Within a few seconds, refresh the Discourse page — the status should update

You can check the webhook delivery status in GitHub’s webhook settings to confirm events are being sent and received successfully.

Status Priority

When a PR has multiple states (e.g., approved but also has changes requested), the status is determined by this priority:

1. Merged (highest priority)
2. Closed
3. Draft
4. Changes Requested
5. Approved
6. Open (default)

Review Status Logic

The feature fetches review information from the GitHub API to determine approval status:

• Takes the latest review from each reviewer
• Ignores “commented” and “pending” review states
• Shows “changes requested” if any reviewer has requested changes
• Shows “approved” only if reviews exist and none request changes

Where It Works

• Forum posts — Any post containing a GitHub PR onebox
• Chat messages — PR oneboxes in chat also display live status

Note: Inline oneboxes (when a link appears inline in text rather than as a full preview) do not display status icons.

Migrating from GitHub Status Theme Component

This feature replaces the GitHub Status Indicators theme component. The two are not compatible and should not be used together.

If you’re currently using the theme component:

1. Disable and remove the github-status-theme theme component
2. Enable this built-in feature via the github pr status enabled setting

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Configuration

GitHub Access Token

In order for the linkback feature to work and the badges to be granted to your users, you need to provide a GitHub access token. You can generate your token here: Sign in to GitHub · GitHub.

The linkback feature requires the public_repo scope, and granting badges requires no scope (leave everything unchecked if you only want badges). Since the public_repo scope grants write access to repositories, we recommend you create a throwaway GitHub account that has access to no repositories and use it just to generate a token.

Token Scopes by Feature

Feature	Required Scope
Badges	No scope required
Linkback	public_repo
PR Status (public repos)	No scope required
PR Status (private repos)	repo

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Site Settings Reference

Setting	Default	Description
enable discourse github plugin	false	Master switch for the plugin
github badges enabled	false	Enable GitHub contribution badges
github badges repos	(empty)	Repository URLs to track for badges
github linkback enabled	false	Enable linkbacks from GitHub to Discourse
github linkback access token	(empty)	Access token for linkback feature
github linkback projects	(empty)	Projects to create linkbacks for
github permalinks enabled	false	Replace GitHub links with permalinks
github pr status enabled	false	Enable PR status icons on oneboxes
github webhook secret	(empty)	Secret for webhook signature verification
github onebox access tokens	(empty)	Access tokens for GitHub API (format: org|token)

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Technical Details

PR Status API Usage

When a GitHub PR onebox is generated, Discourse makes up to two API calls:

1. PR Data: GET /repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/{number} — Fetches basic PR information including state, merged status, and draft status
2. Reviews: GET /repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/{number}/reviews — Fetches review data to determine approval status

These calls use your configured access token if available, allowing access to private repositories.

Webhook Security

Webhook requests are verified using HMAC-SHA256 signature validation. GitHub signs the webhook payload with your secret, and Discourse verifies this signature before processing. Invalid signatures are rejected with a 403 response.

Webhook Events That Trigger Updates

• PR state changes (opened, closed, reopened)
• PR merged
• Draft status changes (converted to draft, ready for review)
• Pull request reviews submitted
• Reviews edited or dismissed

Performance Considerations

• Rebaking is queued as a low-priority background job to avoid impacting site performance
• Only posts/messages with full GitHub PR oneboxes are rebaked (inline oneboxes are skipped)
• Chat message rebakes skip notifications to prevent duplicate alerts

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CHANGELOG

2025-12-10

• FIX: Skip notifications when rebaking chat messages from GitHub webhooks

2025-12-09

• FIX: Skip rebaking posts with inline GitHub PR oneboxes
• FIX: Avoid intermediate state when rebaking posts with oneboxes
• FIX: Rebake chat messages when GitHub PR status changes
• UX: Use min-height to prevent layout shift when the status icon changes
• UX: Reduce GitHub PR status icon size on mobile

2025-12-08

• FEATURE: Add “changes requested” status to GitHub PR oneboxes

2025-12-04

• FEATURE: GitHub PR live status icon

2025-11-10

• FEATURE: Allow and denylist for linkbacks

2025-11-08

• FEATURE: Add category ignore list for GitHub linkbacks

2024-12-20

• DEV: Move discourse-github to core (no longer requires separate installation)

[ImmaZoni (Justin)]

What is the process for multiple links? does it just add them to the same commit comment? or make a whole new comment every time?

[satonotdead]

I wonder if commits and PRs badges could be simplified because we are trying to keep away The paradox of choice

Currently I just forked and deleted commit badges but of course, I loss myself from the commit badge (because I’m commiting directly) and fork is not equal to keeping always with the core.

[xomiamoore (Mia)]

@Discourse

• username/repository for specific repositories
• username/* for all repositories of a certain user

The wildcard * didn’t work for me for a GitHub organization, I ended up putting in every repo individually. Has anyone else had issues with this with an organization vs. a user?

[greyli]

How to set the linkback comment language?

[cultiv (Sebastiaan Janssen)]

Thank you, I really like this plugin! I was confused about the badges system and was glad to find the explanation in a different topic: Github Badges are not working. Its hard to see if I do something wrong or if the plugin is not working - #4 by simon

However, that reply notes that

The plugin creates 6 badges:

I don’t see any of these badges, not sure what happened? Is there a way to (re?)trigger the creation of these badges?

[cultiv (Sebastiaan Janssen)]

To answer my own question, after a few hours the scheduled task ran and that’s when the badges got created.

@cultiv

Is there a way to (re?)trigger the creation of these badges?

The manual way to do this would be to trigger the sidekiq job it seems.

[tomtjes (Thomas Reintjes)]

Feature Request: exclude categories and/or tags from linkback

We have an Announcements category into which the RSS Plugin automatically pulls new GitHub releases. When the release notes link to issues, that link also appears in Discourse and a linkback is created, but one that is not helpful to anyone, creating clutter on Github.

I would like to be able to exclude certain posts, i.e. categories or tags or even just posts from the user that is configured in the RSS Plugin, from creating linkbacks.

[david (David Taylor)]

This plugin is now bundled with Discourse core as part of Bundling more popular plugins with Discourse core. If you are self-hosting and use the plugin, you need to remove it from your app.yml before your next upgrade.