Slash Commands Public Feedback #40299

This is the biggest item holding us back from using the issues forms, as they don't work with slash commands, or in other places where you create the issues without access to the templates (new projects, new task lists, the "Create issue" button for legacy task lists).

It would be great to see those integrate with some of the newer features, as they're a much better flow when collecting issues from a broader community.

Is there a place to specificaly give feedback on the new issue forms?

nohaaaaa18 Jun 15, 2023

اريد طريقه حل المشكلة

haydenwhayne Nov 6, 2023

@omerbensaadon any word on when issue forms will be supported in slash templates?

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AlCalzone · 2023-03-15T21:46:55Z

AlCalzone
Mar 15, 2023

When I heard about this feature I was hoping GitHub would finally the powerful slash commands from Gitlab. It doesn't look like it though, so IMO this feature falls short of its huge potential. I'm especially missing the following ones:

/approve / /unapprove - Approves/Unapproves a PR
/assign <user> - Assign an issue or PR to a user
/close / /reopen - Close/Reopen an issue/PR
/draft / /ready - Mark a PR as draft/ready to review
/label label1 label2 / /unlabel label3 - Add/remove labels to/from an issue
/target_branch <local branch name> - Change the target branch of a PR

Additional features that could be interesting:

/automerge - Enable automerging for PRs
...

If those commands were supported in saved replies, we could have very powerful automations for things that need to be done on a regular basis and that currently need custom bots etc.

6 replies

jlsjonas Mar 21, 2023

I had the same impression; the beta actually makes the /-command experience worse as you now have a distracting useless pop-up on top 😅

If only...

BDARmech Jun 18, 2023

no /close maybe /close

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elanzini Aug 12, 2023

+ /rebase

alvaromartmart Sep 11, 2023

+1 for the ability to add custom slash commands, would enhance the experience with comment-based CI wofklows

zhoushengdao · 2023-03-16T04:31:27Z

zhoushengdao
Mar 16, 2023

Uh, the colours seem to be wrong when the mouse is hovering over the slash commands button.

1 reply

BDARmech May 16, 2023

I switched for personal reasons. If penetrated, I want to feel it. lol. But great feature.

shadowspawn · 2023-03-16T06:20:51Z

shadowspawn
Mar 16, 2023

When using /codeblock I can't seem to select the language by typing, as typing abandons the slash command and inserts the character I type. This means I need to scroll through the list using the arrow keys or mouse which is slow.

e.g.

hit / (Slash commands appears)
hit c (Slash commands list restricted to Code block)
hit Enter (Slash / Code block appears)
hit t hoping to restrict or scroll list and select TypeScript (cancelled, now have text /ct type into issue)

6 replies

candidexmedia Mar 29, 2023

Agreed!

bba615523 Apr 19, 2023

Agreed!

Insert codeblocks for C# as csharp instead of c# and insert codeblocks for C++ as cpp intead of c++.

#52420

AnixPasBesoin May 5, 2023

Code here make the same suggestion :)

anthony-legitfit Jul 19, 2023

Came here to make the same suggestion for saved replies by typing the start of their titles

omerbensaadon Jul 19, 2023
Collaborator Author

So we have the designs for this, but it sort of turned into an a11y focused overhaul. The overhaul is going to take awhile to work its way up the backlog of all the other things we have going on.

This is top 2 items in the backlog for sure once we get back to this.

HonkingGoose · 2023-03-16T08:23:25Z

HonkingGoose
Mar 16, 2023

Add more syntaxes to `/codeblock` helper

Can you please add these syntaxes to the /codeblock helper?

json
markdown
yaml

Why I want these syntaxes added?

I use the json syntax daily for displaying the renovate.json config file in Issues and in the Renovate documentation.
I use the markdown to show the Markdown code next to my mockups of Markdown based features.
I use the yaml syntax to work with Material for MkDocs config files.

Split syntaxes into categories

The /codeblock helper probably only shows a sub-set of all valid syntaxes to keep the dropdown small. The /table helper has multiple menus to drill-down to the specific table format. How about splitting syntaxes into categories like: "programming languages" and "configuration file syntax"?

Suggested workflow for user

User enters /codeblock.
Show menu and let user select the category they want, like "programming languages" or "configuration file syntax".
Show the syntaxes related in the selected category in a new menu.
Users selects the syntax they want.
Generate the codeblock snippet.
Insert snippet into field.
Done.

Pros of categorizing

By categorizing you can show more syntaxes, while keeping the dropdown small and scrollable.
You already have the functionality for the table helper, so it's probably easy to use the same concept for /codeblock.

Cons of categorizing

Figuring out the correct category for each item can be a bit tricky.
With the category proposal, you no longer show all items in a single place which makes discovery of the syntaxes a bit harder.

Alternative: add items to current list

You can also decide to just add json, markdown and yaml to the current list, and accept that users have to scroll a bit more to find the item they want.

4 replies

omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023
Collaborator Author

Hey we're going to investigate adding these, give us a bit and we'll get back to you!

koenpunt Mar 24, 2023

Maybe the list of languages should be based on the languages used in the project/repo?

HonkingGoose Apr 4, 2023

@omerbensaadon Thank you for considering my ideas! ❤️

bond Mar 7, 2024

Would be great with support for JSON and YAML! 👍

vanillajonathan · 2023-03-16T10:59:48Z

vanillajonathan
Mar 16, 2023

Insert codeblocks for C# as csharp instead of c# and insert codeblocks for C++ as cpp intead of c++.

0 replies

Phil-DS · 2023-03-16T15:16:48Z

Phil-DS
Mar 16, 2023

Love the slash commands idea. However, I feel that there is a missed opportunity. Commands where additional attributes can be added via the menu could be useful having them as arguements.

For example:

Typing /codeblock python to bring up the menu asking if I wanted a python code block.
Typing /table 3,3 to bring up the menu asking if I wanted a 3x3 table.

1 reply

omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023
Collaborator Author

We hear you, this is similar to the comment by @shadowspawn, see my response there

denpolischuk · 2023-03-16T16:11:39Z

denpolischuk
Mar 16, 2023

We're using custom slash commands for some automation in our organization like /deploy-to-staging, that mostly trigger various GH Actions using 'on issue comment' event.
Is there a chance that you could add a feature to have custom slash commands descriptions on org/repo level?

16 replies

edmarriner Jul 4, 2023

@omerbensaadon we too would really benefit from this feature and would love to provide feedback

joshhunt Jul 18, 2023

@omerbensaadon This looks great, but it would be great if we could enable snippets for public repositories as well.

maelvls Aug 9, 2023

Most Kubernetes projects (including cert-manager) use custom slash commands. In the cert-manager project, you can see which commands are available in https://prow.build-infra.jetstack.net/command-help. Commands look like this:

/assign @maelvls
/unassign
/cherrypick release-3.9
/lgtm
/approve
/ok-to-test
/release-note-none
/override dco
/retest
/test pull-cert-manager-master-make-test

It would be formidable if GitHub could autocomplete those commands. We would probably need to define these custom autocompletions somewhere in the GitHub organization settings.

natemoo-re Oct 19, 2023

This is also what I'd hoped these would be! At Astro we have quite a few custom GitHub Action-based commands like !bench and !preview. It would be awesome to be able to wire this up in the GitHub UI, ideally with autocomplete. Discord's Slash Commands handle this quite elegantly.

gabolaev Jan 19, 2024

same here

neverendingqs · 2023-03-16T16:32:45Z

neverendingqs
Mar 16, 2023

Feature Request:

When using /template in a pull request, it looks like it pulls the default one only. It would be nice to be able to select any of the templates in .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE/.

1 reply

mtcA6 Aug 25, 2023

yea it looks like it's the first 10 templates that exist.

edited.
well i wasn't looking JUST at pull requests i was looking at issue templates, it's the first 10 in the list but our org has WAY more

avi12 · 2023-03-16T18:45:13Z

avi12
Mar 16, 2023

I'd love to have the ability to have a code snippet from a file, whether it belongs to the repository or not
Could be in /snippet

0 replies

m2web · 2023-03-16T21:23:53Z

m2web
Mar 16, 2023

When will the /slash commands be available in Visual Studio Code? 👍🏽 😄

4 replies

vanillajonathan Mar 16, 2023

Ctrl+Shift+P to open the Command Palette. But I guess you meant for Markdown...

m2web Mar 16, 2023

Yes, for Markdown. ☺️

vanillajonathan Mar 16, 2023

Yeah, that would be really! 👍️

omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023
Collaborator Author

I uh don't have information about this as a PM at GitHub 😆

Jak-MS · 2023-03-16T21:35:04Z

Jak-MS
Mar 16, 2023

/s↵ - saved replies are not in alphabetical order...

0 replies

mlippert · 2023-03-16T22:30:15Z

mlippert
Mar 16, 2023

I'm editing a code block and when I delete some text next to a slash this dialog pops up, it's pretty of annoying when I'm editing not trying to enter a slash command

Is there any way to turn off slash commands?

2 replies

omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023
Collaborator Author

You can disable this in the feature preview pane

We'll work on ways of making this less intrusive (perhaps only triggering slash commands when they are on a new line?) before we take away the option to turn this off.

Sorry for the frustration

hackerb9 Apr 4, 2023

@omerbensaadon I agree with that it would be nice if / was less intrusive. Perhaps there could be an "expert" option that allows slash commands to work but without the "helpful" popup? Or, even better, could there be an area reserved underneath or to the side of the text box where popups can go without interrupting the flow of typing? Thanks!

Perlence · 2023-03-17T10:18:47Z

Perlence
Mar 17, 2023

Adding the Slash commands button causes the toolbar to wrap incorrectly in the code comments on 1440 px wide displays.

Here's how the toolbar looks without the Slash commands button.

1 reply

omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023
Collaborator Author

Noted! thank you!

maZahaca · 2024-01-12T16:50:31Z

maZahaca
Jan 12, 2024

Is it possible to extend the slash command on the org/repository level? E.g. add /deploy, which will trigger a CI/CD deployment to a dev environment.
By extend I mean to have it appear in this menu

0 replies

seshrs · 2024-01-17T16:04:50Z

seshrs
Jan 17, 2024

Thanks for adding this! Feature request: Can we add a row for inserting highlighted blockquotes (like "Note", "Warning", etc.)?

0 replies

weezy20 · 2024-01-24T13:31:35Z

weezy20
Jan 24, 2024

Can we add /bullet or /list to start a bulleted list without having to use the mouse and create one?

0 replies

TWiStErRob · 2024-01-25T10:50:20Z

TWiStErRob
Jan 25, 2024

Amazing feature, I love that GH is embracing details/summary!

Feedback: please add more options:

like task lists, bullet/numbered lists. (The slashy version of these can create a working version with N "example" items compared to just inserting a - when pressed on the toolbar.)
link/reference
info/warning alerts (their syntax is really hard to remember)

0 replies

abhishekchitwar · 2024-01-25T12:26:51Z

abhishekchitwar
Jan 25, 2024

Very nice feature, Is there a way to add the more custom templates to "/ Templates"? Like the way for the issues.

1 reply

abhishekchitwar Jan 25, 2024

No worries, I got the steps to set up the new template, which gets added to the /Templates list.
https://docs.github.com/en/communities/using-templates-to-encourage-useful-issues-and-pull-requests/configuring-issue-templates-for-your-repository
Thanks!

airtonix · 2024-02-10T03:11:46Z

airtonix
Feb 10, 2024

add the new notes/warning/error callouts

> [!NOTE]  
> Highlights information that users should take into account, even when skimming.

> [!TIP]
> Optional information to help a user be more successful.

> [!IMPORTANT]  
> Crucial information necessary for users to succeed.

> [!WARNING]  
> Critical content demanding immediate user attention due to potential risks.

> [!CAUTION]
> Negative potential consequences of an action.

Note

Highlights information that users should take into account, even when skimming.

Tip

Optional information to help a user be more successful.

Important

Crucial information necessary for users to succeed.

Warning

Critical content demanding immediate user attention due to potential risks.

Caution

Negative potential consequences of an action.

0 replies

Maker-Mark · 2024-02-14T21:09:52Z

Maker-Mark
Feb 14, 2024

Amazing feature for build in features, however it'd be extremely valuable to be able to add custom slash commands for the menu.
For example, if you generate a build when /generate-thing is typed on a pr. It'd be nice to be able to add generate-thing to the list under "custom" or, in this case "pull request".

7 replies

mtcA6 Feb 15, 2024

wait wait wait SO YOU CAN BUILD custom slash commands?!

alvaromartmart Feb 15, 2024

wait wait wait SO YOU CAN BUILD custom slash commands?!

Nope. I assume @Maker-Mark is referring to using the same syntax in comments (e.g. /mykeyword) and using them as Github Action triggers (but without any special support / suggestions from Github UI)

Maker-Mark Feb 15, 2024

@mtcA6 Yes, you can easily get a PR comment and run an action based off of it:

    if: github.event.issue.pull_request &&
     github.event.comment.body == '/your-command'

then run the action's steps.
But you can't add it to the slash commands UI so a contributor can see that the command exists

Maker-Mark Feb 15, 2024

@alvaromartmart That's right, that's what I'm getting at. I'm now seeing i'm not the first to ask for this, ie https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/40299#discussioncomment-8112272

CYWong-Nick Mar 25, 2024

It will be a very powerful feature to allow customization of the pop-up list. I can see a lot of users with similar use cases of typing a /deploy command in the comment to trigger CI/CD builds.

HinTak · 2024-02-16T00:44:29Z

HinTak
Feb 16, 2024

Shit pop up, keep popping up when I am typing. I am typing postscript, and the pop up keep wanting to suggest a programming language I might be using. It I'd raw postscript - just stop getting into my typing.

1 reply

omerbensaadon Mar 4, 2024
Collaborator Author

Sorry to hear that, you can disable it site-wide via Feature Preview: https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/using-github/exploring-early-access-releases-with-feature-preview#exploring-beta-releases-with-feature-preview

tim-thacker-nullify · 2024-02-27T22:46:38Z

tim-thacker-nullify
Feb 27, 2024

Has any thought been put into allowing GitHub Apps to add custom slash commands?
Even if it is just defining some key/value pairs of command and the text to put in the textbox.

I remember dependabot used to make you type @dependabot rebase (no autocompletion for github app usernames either) to get it to rebase a PR it created.

the UX would have been much better if a slash command for /dependabot-rebase was available in the drop down menu to quickly select.

1 reply

nalbion Feb 27, 2024

VS Code Copilot Chat's chat extensions allows agents to register slash commands. This suggestion would be inline with that.

cat.commandProvider = {
  provideCommands(token) {
    return [
      {
        name: 'teach',
        description:
          'Pick at random a computer science concept then explain it in purfect way of a cat'
      },
      { name: 'play', description: 'Do whatever you want, you are a cat after all' }
    ];
  }
};

mentholi · 2024-03-04T09:45:05Z

mentholi
Mar 4, 2024

This feature actually drives me mad! Is there any way to disable these completely? Also as a side note, the popup doesn't close when clicking outside of it in PR editor. 0/5.

4 replies

omerbensaadon Mar 4, 2024
Collaborator Author

Sorry to hear that, you can disable it site-wide via Feature Preview: https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/using-github/exploring-early-access-releases-with-feature-preview#exploring-beta-releases-with-feature-preview

HinTak Mar 4, 2024

This should be mentioned at the beginning. Months of suffering could be avoided.

omerbensaadon Mar 4, 2024
Collaborator Author

I'll add it to the Discussion description...

nalbion Mar 4, 2024

GitHub CoPilot groups the slash commands under agent/participant. Maybe another config option could be to only make slash commands available after mentioning @github or @some-app-agent? That way people wouldn't have to disable it completely, but could opt-in as needed

brandicph · 2024-03-07T09:12:34Z

brandicph
Mar 7, 2024

Would be great with a /suggestion command while doing reviews. Seems like the suggestion button disappeared.

Here's how it looks (with preview feature enabled)

Here's how it used to look like (with preview feature disabled)

0 replies

mdhq66 · 2024-03-08T16:21:44Z

mdhq66
Mar 8, 2024

When I use the "/Template" slash command in an issue, it only displays a maximum of 10 templates even though there are 25+ in our template repository. Has anyone else experienced this issue? The documentation on their website says it should display all templates.

Resolving this limitation issue will be a huge help to our IT Team and organization as a whole to streamline our clinical trial startup workflow.

2 replies

mtcA6 Mar 8, 2024

Yea I have the same issue it's really annoying. The order isn't clear either how it picked those 10 to show.

mdhq66 Mar 8, 2024

I agree! I was so excited to use this new feature, so our team could apply the templates to the issue when needed instead of when the issue is created since there is a lag between when the issue is created vs. started on. It would prevent us from using stale workflow information and having to manually remove the stale workflow information and then copy and paste the relevant workflow information from the Template repository. It would be a nice bonus for us to be able to order them too. Good idea!

yashsway · 2024-03-28T14:46:47Z

yashsway
Mar 28, 2024

Would love a slash command that would automatically pull all commit messages from commits captured in the PR into the same format used when doing squash commits and insert the multi-line text (preferably a list with each commit itemized) where the slash command was triggered.

I follow conventional commit syntax which means all my commits are self-documenting and in my org we enforce a "Summary of Changes" for every PR which essentially needs to contain the same information. It would make it much easier/efficient if I could pull all those in first and then massage it to summarize my changes.

1 reply

TWiStErRob Mar 28, 2024

Bar the existence of a slash command, you can achieve a lesser version of this feature with a simple GHA. (click to expand)

Trigger: on: issue_comment (created, edited)
Only run on PRs
Only run if comment body contains magic string (e.g. /commit_list) (example)
Step: run: gh api ... to edit comment via GH REST API replacing text.

You should be able to get the comment ID from the comment event.

Not an ideal process, but at least possible right now.

tristdrum · 2024-04-16T11:52:59Z

tristdrum
Apr 16, 2024

I was hoping /quote would introduce a quote block in markdown.

0 replies

Keavon · 2024-04-18T07:33:40Z

Keavon
Apr 18, 2024

I'd like a slash command to make it more quick to insert <kbd></kbd>, like by typing /kbd and having it insert the opening and closing tags with the cursor placed in the middle.

0 replies

Slash Commands Public Feedback #40299

omerbensaadon Nov 28, 2022 Collaborator

Replies: 142 comments · 146 replies

omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023 Collaborator Author

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omerbensaadon Jul 19, 2023 Collaborator Author

Add more syntaxes to /codeblock helper

Why I want these syntaxes added?

Split syntaxes into categories

Suggested workflow for user

Pros of categorizing

Cons of categorizing

Alternative: add items to current list

omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023 Collaborator Author

omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023 Collaborator Author

omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023 Collaborator Author

omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023 Collaborator Author

omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023 Collaborator Author

omerbensaadon
Nov 28, 2022
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Replies: 142 comments 146 replies

omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023
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omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023
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omerbensaadon Jul 19, 2023
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Add more syntaxes to `/codeblock` helper

omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023
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omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023
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omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023
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omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023
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omerbensaadon Mar 20, 2023
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