Automention

Automatically mention users in an issue/PR based on github labels.

NOTE: Automention requires Github Actions to be enabled on your repo, and Actions is still in beta.

Intro

Github's notifications system is lacking when you have a monorepo with lots of sub-projects and contributors. Automention makes sure the right people get notified whenever their attention is needed.

It's an easy install github action that @mentions one or more users based on the labels of an issue/PR.

Consider Storybook, which has 50+ packages and 650+ contributors and the following Automention configuration:

'app: angular': ['kroeder', 'igor-dv']
'app: react-native': ['benoitdion']
'app: vue': ['backbone87']
'addon: a11y': ['CodeByAlex', 'Armanio', 'jsomsanith']
typescript: ['kroeder', 'gaetanmasse', 'ndelangen']
# ...

Whenever an Angular issue comes in, Automention will comment:

Automention: @kroeder @igor-dv you've been tagged! Can you give a hand here?

This way @kroeder and @igor-dv can focus on Angular messages if they want, by only subscribing to messsages that @mention them.

If an issue is re-labeled, automention updates or deletes the comment as you would expect.

Install

Install Automention in two easy steps:

1. Add to your actions in .github/main.workflow
2. Configure your notifications in automention.yml

First, add Automention to your github workflow .github/main.workflow:

action "Automention" {
  uses = "shilman/automention@master"
  secrets = ["GITHUB_TOKEN"]
}

workflow "Automention PRs" {
  on = "pull_request"
  resolves = "Automention"
}

workflow "Automention Issues" {
  on = "issues"
  resolves = "Automention"
}

This triggers Automention every time an issue or PR is modified in any way.

By default, Automention will run but won't take any actions. I recommend adding it unconfigured first, then configuring it after you've seen it run. After you've pushed this change to your workflow, trigger Automention by taking any of the actions you've set up in the workflow (e.g. create a new PR). You should be able to see the action run in your repo's Actions tab.

Configuration

Configuration is even easier, simply create a file .github/automention.yml with key value pairs corresponding to issue labels and list of users to notify:

label1: ['user1', 'user2']
label2: ['user1']

If a PR or issue is labeled with more than one label, Automention will mention the union of all users, sorted alphabetically.

Heuristics

Automention has a few heuristics (which might be turned into configuration options in the future):

• Don't comment on closed issues
• Don't comment on assigned issues
• Don't automention issue author or commenters

Credits

• Inspired by Storybook
• Built with Actions toolkit