{"slug": "github-agentic-workflows", "name": "GitHub Agentic Workflows", "category": "ai", "category_name": "AI tools and apps", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 13, "warners": 2, "score": 3.429, "rising": -1.31, "first": "2025-12-08", "latest": "2026-07-08", "why": "They support much of the same triggers and come with many additional security controls out of the box", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 5, "compare": 2, "warn": 2}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "They support much of the same triggers and come with many additional security controls out of the box", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/github/gh-aw", "official_url": "https://github.com/github/gh-aw", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["GitHub Agentic Workflows"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 781351873, "item_id": 48834492, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48834492", "by": "hardsnow", "date": "2026-07-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "GitHub Agentic workflows are the proper 1st party solution for this exact issue", "excerpt": "GitHub doesn\u2019t exactly make it easy to configure agent access securely. In fact, their regular access tokens and app credentials don\u2019t provide granular enough controls to give direct access to private repos securely. Even if tokens are tightly scoped, access to public repos is always allowed and exfiltration via public repo issues for example remains a vector. Securing this requires patching via MITM proxy that imple", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitLost: We Tricked GitHub's AI Agent into Leaking Private Repos"}, {"id": 764297328, "item_id": 47768583, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47768583", "by": "summarity", "date": "2026-04-14", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "They support much of the same triggers and come with many additional security controls out of the box", "excerpt": "If you\u2019re trying this for automating things on GitHub, also take a look at Agentic Workflows: https://github.github.com/gh-aw/ They support much of the same triggers and come with many additional security controls out of the box", "context": "", "use_case": "automating GitHub tasks with agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Code Routines"}, {"id": 756837552, "item_id": 47302347, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47302347", "by": "esafak", "date": "2026-03-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you could you just use a SLM to do that in a periodic job with", "excerpt": "If you have CI hooked up to AI you could you just use a SLM to do that in a periodic job with https://github.github.com/gh-aw/ or https://www.continue.dev/. You could also have it detect architectural drift.", "context": "", "use_case": "Periodic AI CI jobs", "switched_from": "", "story": "We should revisit literate programming in the agent era"}, {"id": 751028304, "item_id": 46939269, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939269", "by": "resquawk", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Generation of the lock file is deterministic.", "excerpt": "Generation of the lock file is deterministic. See here for information about determinism https://github.github.com/gh-aw/reference/faq/#determinism", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}, {"id": 750992832, "item_id": 46937052, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46937052", "by": "siscia", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I believe it is a great idea", "excerpt": "I am somehow close to what MSFT and GitHub are doing here, mostly because I believe it is a great idea, and I am experimenting on it myself. Especially on the angle of automatic/continuos improvement (https://github.github.io/gh-aw/blog/2026-01-13-meet-the-workflows-continuous-simplicity/) Often code is seen as an artifact, that it is valuable by itself. This was an incomplete view before, and it is now a completely ", "context": "", "use_case": "Continuous automated code improvement", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 751104128, "item_id": 46944008, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46944008", "by": "gloosx", "date": "2026-02-09", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "I like how it accumulated 3 such replacements", "excerpt": "I like how it accumulated 3 such replacements before finally getting fixed as a reaction to this comment with PR 14543[0], but after review, two \"fix unit tests\" commits were added, one of which replaces claude with copilot and the second one messing up the docs markdown, getting merged after that. Agentic workflows are the battle... https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/14543", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}, {"id": 750989632, "item_id": 46936852, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46936852", "by": "wiether", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "But the implementation is comically awful.", "excerpt": "I thought that it was to allow non-tech people to start making their own workflows/CI in a no/low-code way and compete against successful companies on this market. But the implementation is comically awful. Sure, you can \"just write natural language\" instructions and hope for the best. But they couldn't fully get away from their old demons and you still have to pay the YAML tax to set the necessary guardrails. I can'", "context": "", "use_case": "Natural-language CI workflows", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["automating github tasks with agents", "periodic ai ci jobs", "continuous automated code improvement", "natural-language ci workflows"], "compared": [], "makers": [{"id": 751027232, "item_id": 46939202, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939202", "by": "resquawk", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "we've fixed the redirect now", "excerpt": "Hey, sorry, yes the better link is https://github.github.com/gh-aw/ but we had a redirect set to https://github.github.io/gh-aw/ Both work and we've fixed the redirect now, thanks", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}, {"id": 751026976, "item_id": 46939186, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939186", "by": "resquawk", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Agentic workflows can mix algorithmic + agentic steps.", "excerpt": "Yes, great points. Agentic workflows can mix algorithmic + agentic steps. There's a design pattern we call \"DataOps\" which is all about this - algorithmic extraction then an agentic step delivering a safe output. See https://github.github.com/gh-aw/patterns/dataops/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}, {"id": 751016320, "item_id": 46938520, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938520", "by": "resquawk", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The egress firewall is active by default", "excerpt": "The egress firewall is active by default, see https://github.github.io/gh-aw/introduction/architecture/ We've fixed the example on the README and hopefully it's clearer now what's going on.", "context": "", "use_case": "Agentic CI workflows", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}, {"id": 751016048, "item_id": 46938503, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938503", "by": "resquawk", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "we've fixed the redirect now", "excerpt": "Hey, sorry, yes the better link is https://github.github.com/gh-aw/ but we had a redirect set to https://github.github.io/gh-aw/ Both work and we've fixed the redirect now, thanks", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}, {"id": 751008384, "item_id": 46938024, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938024", "by": "idan", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The value is \"delegate chores that cannot be handled by a heuristic\"", "excerpt": "https://github.github.io/gh-aw/#gallery down the page has a list of concrete applications For examplpe, https://github.github.io/gh-aw/blog/2026-01-13-meet-the-workflows-issue-management/ has several examples of agentic workflows for managing issues and PRs, and those examples link to actual agentic workflow files you can read and use as a starting point for your own workflows. The value is \"delegate chores that cann", "context": "", "use_case": "Automating issue and PR management", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}, {"id": 751002160, "item_id": 46937635, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46937635", "by": "idan", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "so we'd love for you to kick the tires and share your thoughts", "excerpt": "Hello HN! The Agentic Workflows project has been on the githubnext.com website for a while, and we recently moved the documentation and repo over to the `github` org. This is early research out of GitHub Next building on our continuous AI [1] theme, so we'd love for you to kick the tires and share your thoughts. We'd be happy to answer questions, give support, whatever you need. One of the key goals of this project i", "context": "", "use_case": "Agents in GitHub Actions", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46934107", "title": "GitHub Agentic Workflows", "mentions": 15}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48827858", "title": "GitLost: We Tricked GitHub's AI Agent into Leaking Private Repos", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47768133", "title": "Claude Code Routines", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47376584", "title": "Show HN: GitAgent \u2013 An open standard that turns any Git repo into an AI agent", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47300747", "title": "We should revisit literate programming in the agent era", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47049848", "title": "Show HN: Continue \u2013 Source-controlled AI checks, enforceable in CI", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 3, "compare": 2, "warn": 2, "recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 781351873, "item_id": 48834492, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48834492", "by": "hardsnow", "date": "2026-07-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "GitHub Agentic workflows are the proper 1st party solution for this exact issue", "excerpt": "GitHub doesn\u2019t exactly make it easy to configure agent access securely. In fact, their regular access tokens and app credentials don\u2019t provide granular enough controls to give direct access to private repos securely. Even if tokens are tightly scoped, access to public repos is always allowed and exfiltration via public repo issues for example remains a vector. Securing this requires patching via MITM proxy that imple", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitLost: We Tricked GitHub's AI Agent into Leaking Private Repos"}, {"id": 764297328, "item_id": 47768583, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47768583", "by": "summarity", "date": "2026-04-14", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "They support much of the same triggers and come with many additional security controls out of the box", "excerpt": "If you\u2019re trying this for automating things on GitHub, also take a look at Agentic Workflows: https://github.github.com/gh-aw/ They support much of the same triggers and come with many additional security controls out of the box", "context": "", "use_case": "automating GitHub tasks with agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Code Routines"}, {"id": 758283857, "item_id": 47392741, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47392741", "by": "danielmeppiel", "date": "2026-03-15", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Similar idea (rooted on \"agents as markdown\") but on the outer loop is taking shape at GitHub with GitHub Agentic Workflows.", "excerpt": "Love the concept and agree it can become a thing. On the schema, not sure about skillflows, tools, knowledge, memory - those aren't much standardized today, but agree they help as additional primitives, and standardizing would help. I built Agent Package Manager at Microsoft - wondering if it may supercharge GitAgents with dependency modules so that they can become composable, same as for classic software. Many commo", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: GitAgent \u2013 An open standard that turns any Git repo into an AI agent"}, {"id": 756837552, "item_id": 47302347, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47302347", "by": "esafak", "date": "2026-03-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you could you just use a SLM to do that in a periodic job with", "excerpt": "If you have CI hooked up to AI you could you just use a SLM to do that in a periodic job with https://github.github.com/gh-aw/ or https://www.continue.dev/. You could also have it detect architectural drift.", "context": "", "use_case": "Periodic AI CI jobs", "switched_from": "", "story": "We should revisit literate programming in the agent era"}, {"id": 752859008, "item_id": 47053688, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47053688", "by": "megamorf", "date": "2026-02-17", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "How is it different from https://github.github.io/gh-aw/?", "excerpt": "How is it different from https://github.github.io/gh-aw/?", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Continue \u2013 Source-controlled AI checks, enforceable in CI"}, {"id": 751104128, "item_id": 46944008, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46944008", "by": "gloosx", "date": "2026-02-09", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "I like how it accumulated 3 such replacements", "excerpt": "I like how it accumulated 3 such replacements before finally getting fixed as a reaction to this comment with PR 14543[0], but after review, two \"fix unit tests\" commits were added, one of which replaces claude with copilot and the second one messing up the docs markdown, getting merged after that. Agentic workflows are the battle... https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/14543", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}, {"id": 751073120, "item_id": 46942070, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46942070", "by": "anupamchugh", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Opened an RFC for this: https://github.com/github/gh-aw/issues/14603", "excerpt": "Agents don't need full logs to learn from failures \u2014 they need structured error patterns. Compact logs older than 7 days into summaries (status, errors, token count, 1-line context). Saves 80-90% tokens for 30-day trend analysis. Like materializing aggregates instead of re-querying raw tables. Opened an RFC for this: https://github.com/github/gh-aw/issues/14603", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}, {"id": 751028304, "item_id": 46939269, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939269", "by": "resquawk", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Generation of the lock file is deterministic.", "excerpt": "Generation of the lock file is deterministic. See here for information about determinism https://github.github.com/gh-aw/reference/faq/#determinism", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}, {"id": 751016784, "item_id": 46938549, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938549", "by": "resquawk", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "For Continuous Documentation examples, see", "excerpt": "For Continuous Documentation examples, see https://github.github.io/gh-aw/blog/2026-01-13-meet-the-workflows-documentation/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}, {"id": 751007792, "item_id": 46937987, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46937987", "by": "onionisafruit", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Ha, they used my comment in the prompt. I love it.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}, {"id": 750992832, "item_id": 46937052, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46937052", "by": "siscia", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I believe it is a great idea", "excerpt": "I am somehow close to what MSFT and GitHub are doing here, mostly because I believe it is a great idea, and I am experimenting on it myself. Especially on the angle of automatic/continuos improvement (https://github.github.io/gh-aw/blog/2026-01-13-meet-the-workflows-continuous-simplicity/) Often code is seen as an artifact, that it is valuable by itself. This was an incomplete view before, and it is now a completely ", "context": "", "use_case": "Continuous automated code improvement", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}, {"id": 750989632, "item_id": 46936852, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46936852", "by": "wiether", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "But the implementation is comically awful.", "excerpt": "I thought that it was to allow non-tech people to start making their own workflows/CI in a no/low-code way and compete against successful companies on this market. But the implementation is comically awful. Sure, you can \"just write natural language\" instructions and hope for the best. But they couldn't fully get away from their old demons and you still have to pay the YAML tax to set the necessary guardrails. I can'", "context": "", "use_case": "Natural-language CI workflows", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}, {"id": 750968448, "item_id": 46935528, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46935528", "by": "sidpatil", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "Does this products directly compete with GitHub Models", "excerpt": "Does this products directly compete with GitHub Models [1]? [1] https://github.com/marketplace?type=models", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}, {"id": 750958272, "item_id": 46934892, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46934892", "by": "lemonlime227", "date": "2026-02-08", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Alternative, less phishy link: https://github.com/github/gh-aw", "excerpt": "Alternative, less phishy link: https://github.com/github/gh-aw This is on GitHub's official account. For some reason GitHub is deploying this on GitHub pages without a different domain?", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Agentic Workflows"}, {"id": 739060432, "item_id": 46191277, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46191277", "by": "captn3m0", "date": "2025-12-08", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "This is converted into an executable GitHub Actions workflow that runs on GitHub using an agentic", "excerpt": "https://githubnext.com/projects/agentic-workflows/ > Instead of writing bespoke scripts that operate over GitHub using the GitHub API, you describe the desired behavior in plain language. This is converted into an executable GitHub Actions workflow that runs on GitHub using an agentic \"engine\" such as Claude Code or Open AI Codex. It's a GitHub Action, but the \"source code\" is natural language in a markdown file.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Actions has a package manager, and it might be the worst"}]}