GitHub Events

info

This plugin is available as a part of the Botkube Cloud offering.

Botkube is introducing new plugins with advanced functionality that will be part of the Botkube Team and Enterprise packages. These advanced plugins require cloud services provided by Botkube and are not part of the Botkube open source software.

As part of this change, some of the existing Botkube plugins are being moved to a new repository. This repository requires authentication with a Botkube account. To continue using these Botkube plugins, create an account at https://app.botkube.io/ and configure a Botkube instance, or migrate an existing installation with the Botkube CLI.

The GitHub Events source sends events for configured GitHub repositories. These events can be sent to communication channels or actions. To learn how to bind sources to communication channels or actions, refer to the Communication and Action documents.

The GitHub Events plugin is hosted by the Botkube Cloud plugin repository and requires active Botkube Cloud account.

Enabling plugin

You can enable the plugin as a part of Botkube instance configuration.

1. If you don't have an existing Botkube instance, create a new one, according to the Installation docs.
2. From the Botkube Cloud homepage, click on a card of a given Botkube instance.
3. Navigate to the platform tab which you want to configure.
4. Click Add plugin button.
5. Select the GitHub Events plugin.
6. Click Save button.

Configuration Syntax

This plugin supports the following configuration:

# Logger configuration settings.
log:
  level: info
  format: json

# GitHub client configuration settings.
github:
  # Auth allows you to set either PAT or APP credentials.
  # If none provided then watch functionality could not work properly, e.g. you can reach the API calls quota or if you are setting GitHub Enterprise base URL then an unauthorized error can occur.
  auth:
    # The GitHub access token.
    # Instruction for creating a token can be found here: https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-personal-access-token-for-the-command-line/#creating-a-token.
    accessToken: your-github-token
    # AppConfig represents the GitHub App configuration.
    # This replaces the AccessToken.
    app:
      # GitHub App ID for authentication.
      id: ""

      # GitHub App Installation ID.
      installationId: ""

      # GitHub App private key in PEM format.
      privateKey: ""
  # The GitHub base URL for API requests. Defaults to the public GitHub API, but can be set to a domain endpoint to use with GitHub Enterprise.
  # Default: https://api.github.com/
  baseUrl: ""

  # The GitHub upload URL for uploading files. It is taken into account only when the BaseURL is also set. If only the BaseURL is provided then this parameter defaults to the BaseURL value.
  # Default: https://uploads.github.com/
  uploadUrl: ""

# refreshDuration defines how often we should call GitHub REST API to check repository events.
# It's the same for all configured repositories. For example, if you configure 5s refresh time, and you have 3 repositories registered,
# we will execute maximum 2160 calls which easily fits into PAT rate limits.
# You can create multiple plugins configuration with dedicated tokens to have the rate limits increased.
#
# NOTE:
# - we use conditional requests (https://docs.github.com/en/rest/overview/resources-in-the-rest-api?apiVersion=2022-11-28#conditional-requests), so if there are no events the call doesn't count against your rate limits.\
# - if you configure file pattern matcher for merged pull request events we execute one more additional call to check which files were changed in the context of a given pull request
#
# Rate limiting: https://docs.github.com/en/rest/overview/resources-in-the-rest-api?apiVersion=2022-11-28#rate-limiting
refreshDuration: 10s

repositories:
  - name: owner/repo1
    on:
      pullRequests:
        - types: [open, merged] # Allowed pull request types (open, closed, merged).
          paths:
            # Included file patterns for pull request changes.
            include: ["kustomize/.*"]
            # Excluded file patterns for pull request changes.
            # exclude: [ '.*\.js' ]
          labels:
            # Included labels for pull requests.
            include: ["bug"]
            # Excluded labels for pull requests.
            # exclude: [ 'enhancement' ]
          notificationTemplate:
            extraButtons:
              - displayName: "Flux Diff"
                commandTpl: "flux diff ks podinfo --path ./kustomize --github-ref {{ .HTMLURL }} "

  - name: owner/repo2
    on:
      # EventsAPI watches for /events API containing events triggered by activity on GitHub.
      # This API is not built to serve real-time use cases. Depending on the time of day, event latency can be anywhere from 30s to 6h.
      # source: https://docs.github.com/en/rest/activity/events?apiVersion=2022-11-28#list-repository-events
      events:
        # WatchEvent for now emitted only when someone stars a repository.
        # https://docs.github.com/en/webhooks-and-events/events/github-event-types#watchevent
        - type: "WatchEvent"

        # IssuesEvent with json path filter
        - type: "IssuesEvent"
          # The JSONPath expression to filter events
          jsonPath: ".action"
          # The value to match in the JSONPath result
          value: "opened"
          notificationTemplate:
            previewTpl: |-
              Issue Opened

              #{{ .Issue.Number }} {{ .Issue.Title }}
              State: {{ .Issue.State }}
            extraButtons:
              - displayName: Open
                url: "{{ .Issue.HTMLURL }}"
                style: primary

Authorization

You can use either a personal access token or a GitHub App for authentication. By using GitHub Apps, you can increase your maximum rate limits because multiple GitHub Apps are independent and do not share the rate limits. However, using multiple Personal Access Tokens (PATs) for the same account will result in sharing the same rate limit.

GitHub personal access token

Follow the instructions here to create a token. The required scope differs for public and private repositories.

GitHub App

To use a GitHub App:

1. Create a GitHub App. No callback or webhook URL is needed.

2. Add read-only permission to the "Members" item of organization permissions.

3. Install the app in your organization.

4. Done! Use the following details for authentication:

   Name	Description
   GitHub App Private Key	PEM-format key generated when the app is installed. If you lost it, you can regenerate it (docs).
   GitHub App ID	Found in the app's "About" page (Organization settings -> Developer settings -> Edit button on your app).
   GitHub App Installation ID	Found in the URL your organization's app install page (Organization settings -> Github Apps -> Configure button on your app). It's the last number in the URL, ex: https://github.com/organizations/{my-org}/settings/installations/1234567890.

Subscriptions

The GitHub Events source plugin uses polling instead of Webhook endpoint for retrieving GitHub events. It calls two types of GitHub REST API endpoints with a configured refresh time window:

• /repos/{owner}/{repo}/events for on.events configuration
• /repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls for on.pullRequests configuration

By default, we use conditional requests to prevent excessive API calls. As a result, from on.pullRequests triggers may have up to a 60-second delay due to caching.

Pull requests

For a configured refreshDuration we call the /repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls endpoint for all registered repositories. It's configured to fetch 100 pull requests that were recently modified. We ignore all events that were already processed.

Matching criteria

If no matching criteria are specified, all pull requests will be reported. For example:

repositories:
  - name: owner/repo1
    on:
      pullRequests: []

To narrow down emitted events, you can specify at least one of the available criteria:

• types: This is a list of pull request types for which the event should be triggered. The allowed types are: open, closed, merged.

• paths.include: This is a list of file patterns for which the event should be triggered. It supports Go regular expressions. For example: ["kustomize/.*"].

• paths.exclude: This is a list of file patterns for which the event should not be triggered. It also supports Go regular expressions. For example: ['.*\.js']. This exclusion criteria takes precedence over paths.include.

• labels.include: This is a list of label patterns for which the event should be triggered. It supports Go regular expressions. For example: ["backend-.*"].

• labels.exclude: This is a list of label patterns for which the event should not be triggered. It supports Go regular expressions. For example: ['bug']. This exclusion criteria takes precedence over labels.include.

Templating

You can customize the notification template with additional buttons:

notificationTemplate:
  extraButtons:
    - displayName: "Flux Diff"
      commandTpl: "flux diff ks podinfo --path ./kustomize --github-ref {{ .HTMLURL }} "

For the commandTpl you can use all fields that are available on pullRequest type.

Events

For a configured refreshDuration we call the /repos/{owner}/{repo}/events endpoint for all registered repositories.

note

This API is not built to serve real-time use cases. Depending on the time of day, event latency can be anywhere from 30s to 6h.

The Events API covers various event types. Refer to the GitHub event types page for more information.

Matching criteria

To retrieve relevant events, you must define at least one entry within the events property. For instance:

events:
  - type: "WatchEvent"

If you provide an empty list events: [], no events will be emitted. For more precise filtering of events, you can optionally use JSONPath along with the event type to filter based on specific criteria within the event payload.

Templating

The available fields for templating differ based on the event type. Refer to the google/go-github repository for dedicated event types.

For instance, you can add an "Open" button to an IssuesEvent template:

events:
  # IssuesEvent with json path filter
  - type: "IssuesEvent"
    # The JSONPath expression to filter events
    jsonPath: ".action"
    # The regex value to match in the JSONPath result
    value: "opened"
    notificationTemplate:
      previewTpl: |-
        Issue Opened

        #{{ .Issue.Number }} {{ .Issue.Title }}
        State: {{ .Issue.State }}
      extraButtons:
        - displayName: Open
          url: "{{ .Issue.HTMLURL }}"
          style: primary

Here, the jsonPath field specifies the JSONPath expression to filter events, and the value field defines the regex value to match within the JSONPath result. This combination helps narrow down reported events based on specific conditions within the event payload.