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how to create an alias in the gh CLI

what i learned

you can create aliases in the GitHub CLI. i'm not super familiar with aliases. i've used them in the past to automate long commands. currently i'm using a couple at work to shorten dbt commmands ever so slightly (from dbt run --target prod --select <models> to prod-run <selection query>).

however, i had only seen these as aliases one sets up at the profile level/scope. as in, we'd go to ~/.bash_profile or ~/.zsh_profile and add a new alias that's set every time we open a new terminal.

this is the first time i see a cli offer that within the tool itself. i wonder if this is a common practice i've missed until now.

in the GitHub cli you can use the command alias set to set an alias (docs).

i usually have to google the full list of flags i would like to run when creating a repo via the gh-cli so i figured i'd save it as an alias now. this is why i ~~wish i remembered~~ would like to run most times:

gh repo create <name> \
--public \
--add-readme \
--clone \
--gitignore Python \
--license bsd-3-clause-clear

simply create a public repo named include a ReadME, a license and a gitignore file and finally clone it to the local directory.

i might add the --disable-wiki simply because i don't use the wikis.

from the docs:

The expansion may specify additional arguments and flags. If the expansion includes positional placeholders such as "$1", extra arguments that follow the alias will be inserted appropriately. Otherwise, extra arguments will be appended to the expanded command.

so what i did was run

gh alias set pyrepo 'repo create "$1" --public --add-readme --clone --gitignore=Python --license=bsd-3-clause-clear'

and if i choose to i can add a description by adding -d "my repos description" right after gh pyrepo <name>

how i learned

i've been creating lots of small project repos lately and this feels like a small automation that could solve some frustrations.

reference

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