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GitHub Integration

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Integrate GitHub with AI SRE runbooks to automate pull request management during incident response.

Use cases​

Use GitHub runbook actions to:

  • Create pull requests for hotfixes
  • List open pull requests for incident correlation
  • Track incident remediation through pull requests
  • Automate PR creation for code changes

Prerequisites​

  • GitHub account with repository access
  • GitHub personal access token or GitHub App
  • Repository permissions: repo, read:org (minimum)

Configure the GitHub integration​

Set up the connector with these steps:

  1. Go to Project Settings, then Third-Party Integrations for AI SRE.

    Third-Party Integrations for AI SRE

  2. Select the connector you want to use or create a new one.

  3. Provide your GitHub credentials:

    • Personal Access Token: Generate from GitHub settings
    • Permissions: repo, read:org (minimum)

  4. Test the connection.

  5. Save the integration.

Available actions​

Create pull request​

Create a pull request in a GitHub repository.

Required fields:

  • Owner: Repository owner (user or organization)
  • Repository: Repository name
  • Source Branch: Branch with changes
  • Target Branch: Branch to merge into
  • Title: Pull request title
  • Body: Pull request description (optional)

List pull requests​

List pull requests from a GitHub repository.

Required fields:

  • Owner: Repository owner (user or organization)
  • Repository: Repository name
  • State: Filter by state (open, closed, or all)

Use GitHub actions in runbooks​

GitHub actions are configured through the runbook action form in the UI:

  1. In your runbook, click New Step, then Action.

    New Step Menu

  2. In the Select Action dialog, go to the Tickets & Code category.

  3. Select GitHub from the available actions.

    Select Action Dialog

  4. Choose the action type (Create GitHub Pull Request or List GitHub Pull Requests).

  5. Fill in the form fields using the Data Picker to insert dynamic values like incident.severity, incident.title, etc.

Available Mustache variables​

Use these variables to map AI SRE incident data to GitHub fields:

VariableDescriptionExample Value
{{Activity.title}}Incident titleAPI Gateway Outage
{{Activity.summary}}Incident summaryPayment API returning 500 errors
{{Activity.severity}}Incident severity0, 1, 2, 3, 4
{{Activity.status}}Incident statusDetected, Investigating, Resolved
{{Activity.service}}Affected service namepayment-service
{{Activity.environment}}Environmentproduction, staging
{{Activity.owner}}Incident owner emailjane.doe@company.com
{{Activity.created_at}}Incident creation timestamp2026-05-06T20:30:00Z
{{Activity.url}}Incident URL in AI SREhttps://app.harness.io/...
{{Activity.id}}Unique incident identifierabc123...
{{Activity.short_id}}Human-readable IDINC-123

Example runbook actions​

Create a pull request for a fix​

Use case: Create a pull request for incident remediation with full context.

Runbook configuration:

  1. In the runbook editor, add a Create GitHub Pull Request action.
  2. Configure the form fields:
    • Owner: myorg
    • Repository: payment-service
    • Source Branch: hotfix/incident-{{Activity.short_id}}
    • Target Branch: main
    • Title: Fix for incident {{Activity.short_id}}: {{Activity.title}}
    • Body: 
      ## Incident Fix

      **Incident**: [{{Activity.short_id}}]({{Activity.url}})
      **Severity**: SEV{{Activity.severity}}
      **Service**: {{Activity.service}}
      **Environment**: {{Activity.environment}}

      ### Description
      {{Activity.title}}

      ### Related
      - Incident URL: {{Activity.url}}

Result: Pull request created with title Fix for incident INC-123: API Gateway Outage targeting main from hotfix/incident-INC-123.

List open pull requests​

Use case: List all open pull requests to check for existing fixes before creating a new one.

Runbook configuration:

  1. In the runbook editor, add a List GitHub Pull Requests action.
  2. Configure the form fields:
    • Owner: myorg
    • Repository: payment-service
    • State: open

Result: Returns a list of all open pull requests in the repository with details including title, branch, and URL.

Create a hotfix PR with context​

Use case: Create a pull request with detailed incident context and action items.

Runbook configuration:

  1. In the runbook editor, add a Create GitHub Pull Request action.
  2. Configure the form fields:
    • Owner: myorg
    • Repository: payment-service
    • Source Branch: hotfix/{{Activity.short_id}}-{{Activity.service}}
    • Target Branch: main
    • Title: [SEV{{Activity.severity}}] {{Activity.title}}
    • Body: 
      ## Hotfix for Incident {{Activity.short_id}}

      **Status**: {{Activity.status}}
      **Service**: {{Activity.service}}
      **Environment**: {{Activity.environment}}
      **Detected**: {{Activity.created_at}}

      ### Incident Summary
      {{Activity.summary}}

      ### Action Items
      - [ ] Code changes implemented
      - [ ] Tests added
      - [ ] Reviewed and approved
      - [ ] Ready to deploy

      ### Links
      - [Incident Details]({{Activity.url}})

      cc: {{Activity.owner}}

Result: Pull request created with full incident context and checklist for tracking remediation progress.

PR title conventions​

Use consistent PR title formats for incident-related pull requests:

By severity:

  • SEV0/SEV1: [SEV0] {{Activity.title}}
  • SEV2+: Fix: {{Activity.title}}

By type:

  • Hotfix: Hotfix/{{Activity.short_id}}: {{Activity.title}}
  • Investigation: Investigation/{{Activity.short_id}}: {{Activity.title}}
  • Post-incident: Post-incident/{{Activity.short_id}}: {{Activity.title}}

Branch naming conventions​

Use consistent branch naming for incident-related work:

# Pattern examples:
hotfix/incident-{{Activity.short_id}}
fix/{{Activity.service}}-{{Activity.short_id}}
incident/{{Activity.short_id}}-{{Activity.severity}}

Security best practices​

Follow these practices to secure the GitHub integration:

  • Use fine-grained personal access tokens
  • Limit repository access to only what is needed
  • Rotate tokens regularly
  • Use GitHub Apps for organization-wide access
  • Enable two-factor authentication
  • Audit integration usage regularly

Next steps​