Writing a Script

Use uv to create a script that depends on this library.

$ uv init --script mod.py
$ uv add --script mod.py modify-repos

Subclass GitHubScript to define the repositories to change and what changes to make. This uses the gh GitHub CLI, which must already be installed and logged in.

from modify_repos import GitHubScript, GitHubRepo

class MyScript(GitHubScript):
    # title used in commit and PR
    title = "..."
    # description used in commit and PR
    body = "..."
    # branch to merge into, defaults to main
    target = "main"
    # branch to create and PR
    branch = "my-changes"
    # one or more users/orgs to clone repos from
    orgs = ["username"]

    def select_for_clone(self, repo: GitHubRepo) -> bool:
        # filter to only clone some of the available repos
        return repo.name in {"a", "b", "d"}

    def modify(self, repo: GitHubRepo) -> None:
        # make any changes, such as add/remove files, here
        ...

if __name__ == "__main__":
    MyScript().run()

Call uv run mod.py, and it will clone and modify all the selected repos. PRs will not be created unless you use MyScript(submit=True) instead, so you can develop and preview your changes first.

Automatic Commit

After calling modify, the script will automatically add any tracked files and create a commit if it detects there are uncommitted changes.

If you add a completely new file, it will not be tracked by Git yet, and this won’t be detected or committed. Therefore, you should call Repo.add_files() to track any new files. Other modifications, such as changing an existing file or using Repo.rm_files(), will already be tracked by Git.

You can set GitRepo.add_untracked to also detect and add completely new untracked files. This is disabled by default as it might end up adding files that were generated as a side effect of other changes.

class MyScript(GitHubScript):
    def modify(self, repo: GitHubRepo) -> None:
        repo.add_untracked = True
        ...

Merge vs PR

By default, the GitHub provider creates PRs. You can instruct a repo to merge and push directly to the target instead. This is disabled by default because it provides one less opportunity to ensure your script worked correctly.

Set GitHubRepo.direct_submit to True to enable this merge and push behavior.

class MyScript(GitHubScript):
    def modify(self, repo: GitHubRepo) -> None:
        repo.direct_submit = True
        ...

Updating

You may have run your script with submit enabled, then noticed that more is needed. If a branch and open PR already exist from a previous run of the script that, a force push will be used to update.