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name: smith-gh-cli description: GitHub CLI gotchas and best practices. Use when executing gh commands. Covers token efficiency, pagination limits, and common pitfalls.

GitHub CLI Best Practices

• Load if: Using GitHub CLI commands
• Prerequisites: @smith-git/SKILL.md, @smith-gh-pr/SKILL.md

CRITICAL: Avoid GitHub MCP (Primacy Zone)

• GitHub MCP tools - hard to control pagination (25k token truncation), less complete than CLI, requires personal token

Use instead: gh pr-review extension, gh api, or GraphQL queries

Token Efficiency

Safe perPage limits:

• list_pull_requests: perPage 20-30
• get_review_comments: perPage 10 (bot reviews are massive)
• get_files: perPage 30
• search_repositories: minimal_output: true

Common Pitfalls

• ALWAYS assign yourself: --assignee @me
• Draft PRs: Use --draft with #WIP in title for work-in-progress
• Ensure gh installed: If gh not found, prompt user/agent to install

Issue Linking

In PR descriptions:

• Closes #123 - Auto-closes on merge
• Fixes #123 - Same as Closes
• Relates to #123 - Links without closing

• @smith-gh-pr/SKILL.md - PR workflows, review comment fetching
• @smith-git/SKILL.md - Git operations