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4 GitHub automation ideas

How to automate GitHub with Zapier

By Nicole Replogle · December 21, 2023
A hero image of the GitHub app logo connected to other app logos on a light blue background.

For a lot of programmers and developers (100 million as of 2023, in fact), it's impossible to do without GitHub. The cloud-based, open-source community is possibly the best and easiest way to store, collaboratively update, and share code for your software projects. 

While GitHub has seemingly endless uses for programmers, not everyone is comfortable working within the platform. That's why connecting GitHub to your most-used tools—like communication apps and task managers—can streamline projects and enable non-techies in your organization to contribute.

In this article, we'll review four ways to use Zapier's automated workflows (called Zaps) to automate GitHub so you can stay organized and connect your critical teams and apps.

New to Zapier? It's workflow automation software that lets you focus on what matters. Combine user interfaces, data tables, and logic with thousands of apps to build and automate anything you can imagine. Sign up for free.

Table of contents

  • Send notifications from GitHub

  • Create tasks from GitHub issues

  • Create GitHub issues from chat and email

  • Create GitHub issues from tasks

To get started with a Zap template—what we call our pre-made workflows—just click on the button. It only takes a few minutes to set up. You can read more about setting up Zaps here.

Send notifications from GitHub

When your team is working in multiple platforms, it's easy for important messages and updates to get lost in the shuffle. You don't want to have to check several apps for relevant notifications; this just invites confusion, missed messages, and delayed work. Instead, it's best to consolidate updates and notifications into one reliable location.

If another developer on your team makes a new commit or adds a pull request, it can be useful to receive notifications of new developments in your project without logging into GitHub. 

With these automated workflows, you can keep yourself and your team up to date by centralizing project discussions in your chat app of choice. Whenever a new commit, mention, pull request, or issue is detected, these Zaps send a channel message in Discord or Slack. From there, your team can quickly respond to new ideas or issues as soon as they crop up.

Send Discord channel messages for new commits in Github

Send Discord channel messages for new commits in Github
  • GitHub logo
  • Discord logo
GitHub + Discord

Get direct messages on Slack for new GitHub mentions

Get direct messages on Slack for new GitHub mentions
  • GitHub logo
  • Slack logo
GitHub + Slack

Send new GitHub pull requests to Slack messages

Send new GitHub pull requests to Slack messages
  • GitHub logo
  • Slack logo
GitHub + Slack

Send Discord channel messages for new GitHub pull requests

Send Discord channel messages for new GitHub pull requests
  • GitHub logo
  • Discord logo
GitHub + Discord

Send new GitHub commits to Slack as new messages

Send new GitHub commits to Slack as new messages
  • GitHub logo
  • Slack logo
GitHub + Slack

Send Discord channel messages for new GitHub issues

Send Discord channel messages for new GitHub issues
  • GitHub logo
  • Discord logo
GitHub + Discord

Create tasks from GitHub issues

When someone on your team creates an issue in a GitHub repository, odds are good that it includes action items—whether it's simply to review feedback, respond to an idea, or approve a pull request. GitHub issues are best used collaboratively, but that only works if the right people receive reminders to come back and keep collaborating.

It's easy to get overwhelmed or confused when trying to keep track of issues in GitHub. Your team may prefer dedicated to-do list apps like Asana, Notion, or Todoist to track action items and stay organized. Wouldn't it be convenient to corral everything into your preferred to-do list app so you only need to check one simplified list for the day's tasks?

With these Zaps, you can automate GitHub by sending new issues to your to-do list. These templates generate new tasks or items in popular task management apps anytime a new issue is detected in a specified repository. That way, you can pass new ideas or tasks directly to your team without copying and pasting between platforms.

Create Trello cards from new GitHub issues

Create Trello cards from new GitHub issues
  • GitHub logo
  • Trello logo
GitHub + Trello

Create Miro card widgets for new GitHub issues

Create Miro card widgets for new GitHub issues
  • GitHub logo
  • Miro logo
GitHub + Miro

Add new GitHub issues as ClickUp tasks

Add new GitHub issues as ClickUp tasks
  • GitHub logo
  • ClickUp logo
GitHub + ClickUp

Add new GitHub issues to Asana as tasks

Add new GitHub issues to Asana as tasks
  • GitHub logo
  • Asana logo
GitHub + Asana

Add new GitHub issues to Todoist as new tasks

Add new GitHub issues to Todoist as new tasks
  • GitHub logo
  • Todoist logo
GitHub + Todoist

Save new GitHub issues in Notion databases

Save new GitHub issues in Notion databases
  • GitHub logo
  • Notion logo
GitHub + Notion

Generate Jira Software issues from new GitHub issues

Generate Jira Software issues from new GitHub issues
  • GitHub logo
  • Jira Software Cloud logo
GitHub + Jira Software Cloud

Create GitHub issues from chat and email

Have you ever had an idea while chatting over Slack or email, but then it never made its way into GitHub? Sometimes the creative energy of a team conversation just doesn't translate well into action (at least in a timely manner). Maybe someone makes a mental note to add that new issue to GitHub later in the day, but they get distracted or forget a key element of the idea. 

This system is inefficient at best—and at worst, you risk losing good ideas or playing a game of telephone that keeps your team misinformed and unaligned.

Instead, why not turn your Slack channel or email threads into a GitHub command center? By setting up one of these workflows, you can create new GitHub issues from inbound email messages or new messages posted to a specific Slack channel.  

Create GitHub issues from new Slack channel messages

Create GitHub issues from new Slack channel messages
  • Slack logo
  • GitHub logo
Slack + GitHub

Add new inbound emails to GitHub as new issues

Add new inbound emails to GitHub as new issues
  • Email by Zapier logo
  • GitHub logo
Email by Zapier + GitHub

Create GitHub issues from tasks

Your DevOps team might live in GitHub, but the rest of your organization probably doesn't. What happens when your customer success team wants to pass on a feature request? How does your marketing or operations staff make bug reports? 

They likely do things the hard way—by sending an email or DM. But this process is slow and inefficient, and requests can quickly get buried or sent to the wrong person. Of course, it also makes a lot more work for whoever ends up translating requests into new GitHub issues.

Instead, you can save yourself and your team the busy work by using these Zaps to create issues in GitHub directly from new tasks in your team's task and project management apps:

Create GitHub issues from new or moved Trello cards

Create GitHub issues from new or moved Trello cards
  • Trello logo
  • GitHub logo
Trello + GitHub

Create GitHub issues from new items in Notion databases

Create GitHub issues from new items in Notion databases
  • Notion logo
  • GitHub logo
Notion + GitHub

Add new Asana tasks to Github as issues

Add new Asana tasks to Github as issues
  • Asana logo
  • GitHub logo
Asana + GitHub

Create GitHub issues from new monday.com board items

Create GitHub issues from new monday.com board items
  • monday.com logo
  • GitHub logo
monday.com + GitHub

Save more time for development by automating GitHub

You probably got into software programming because you enjoy—well, programming software. You didn't sign up for hours of chasing down feedback and translating Slack messages into new GitHub issues.

Thankfully, you don't have to. Zapier's automated workflows let you effortlessly connect your organization's most-used communication and project management apps to GitHub. This, in turn, creates a streamlined system for notifications, task management, and feedback from non-coders. When GitHub is connected to the rest of your tech stack, you reduce manual data transfer and inefficient processes—which means you can dedicate more time to doing what you love.

This is just the start of what you can do with GitHub and Zapier. What will you automate first?

Related reading:

  • Zapier Interfaces: A no-code app builder powered by automation

  • Zapier Tables: A better way to store (and use) your data

  • Popular ways to automate your database apps

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A Zap with the trigger 'When I get a new lead from Facebook,' and the action 'Notify my team in Slack'