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classroom50-sync[bot] edited this page Jul 27, 2026 · 23 revisions

gh student reference

Every command and flag for the student CLI. For a walkthrough, see the CLI Student Guide.

Run gh student <command> --help for the live flag list. Errors go to stderr with a non-zero exit code. Pass --verbose / -v for per-step detail.

Commands at a glance

Command Description
whoami Print the authenticated GitHub user.
login Log in with the unified Classroom 50 scopes (admin:org, read:org, repo, workflow) — the same set gh teacher login requests, so one sign-in covers both. A student only exercises read:org, repo, and workflow.
logout Log out via gh auth logout.
accept <org> <classroom> <assignment> Accept an assignment: auto-accept the org invite, create your private repo, and set up autograding.
invite <org>/<repo> <username> Invite a classmate or TA to your repo with push permission.
submit Snapshot the current branch and push it for grading.

accept

gh student accept <org> <classroom> <assignment>

Creates a private repo at <org>/<classroom>-<assignment>-<username> (a copy of the assignment's template, or an empty repo if it's template-less), then prints a git clone command.

What accept does, step by step
  1. Auto-accepts any pending org invitation.
  2. Looks up the assignment in the classroom's published assignments.json on Pages. A template block resolves the starter; its absence means a template-less empty repo.
  3. Resolves the autograder workflow shim. The default autograder uses the shim embedded in gh-student; a non-default one is fetched from Pages (resolved before creating the repo, so a fetch failure leaves no half-baked repo).
  4. Creates the repo — from the template, an empty auto_init repo, or (for an empty_repo assignment) a truly bare repo with steps 3 and 7 skipped.
  5. Disables issues, projects, and wiki.
  6. Sets your repo role: push for an individual assignment, or admin for a group assignment (so a group founder can invite teammates).
  7. Commits .classroom50.yaml and .github/workflows/autograde.yaml in one commit. The metadata records the classroom, assignment, and (when present) the template repo. gh student submit re-fetches .gitignore and .github/ from that template.
  8. Prints the git clone command.

Already accepted? The command reports Assignment already accepted: <org>/<repo> and leaves your repo alone.

Common errors:

Message What it means
"the classroom may not exist yet, or publish-pages.yaml may not have run" Setup isn't finished or Pages hasn't deployed. Wait, or ask your teacher.
"assignment X is not registered" A typo, or your teacher hasn't added the assignment.
"autograder <name> not published yet" / "is malformed YAML" The autograder's YAML is missing or broken. Ask your teacher.
"template <owner>/<repo> is not accessible to you" The template is private and not shared with you. Ask your teacher to make it public or grant access.
"assignment <X> has unsupported mode <mode>" The manifest's mode is neither individual nor group (likely hand-edited). Ask your teacher.

invite

gh student invite <org>/<repo> <username>

Adds a classmate or TA to your repo with push permission. For a group assignment, the founder uses this to add each teammate.

submit

Run from inside a cloned assignment repo:

gh student submit

Snapshots your submittable files (tracked, plus untracked files that aren't ignored) and pushes them as a new commit on the repo's default branch. The autograde workflow then tags the commit submit/<UTC-timestamp>-<short-sha>, grades it, and publishes a scored Release a minute or two later.

Functionally equivalent to git commit -am "Submit" && git push, with one extra step: it refreshes the teacher's .gitignore and .github/ from the template (skipped for a template-less assignment).

What submit does, step by step
  1. Reads .classroom50.yaml for the template coordinates and identity.
  2. Copies submittable files (tracked + untracked-not-ignored) into a temp worktree, so build artifacts don't pollute the submission.
  3. Fetches the teacher's .gitignore and .github/ from the template.
  4. Commits (with your GitHub login + noreply email) and pushes to the default branch as a fast-forward — no force-push; prior commits stay reachable.
  5. Prints the Actions and Releases URLs.

Tagging is the runner's job. The acceptance commit is skipped (nothing to grade); your first real submit always grades. GIT_AUTHOR_* / GIT_COMMITTER_* override the default identity.

Note

Feedback PR timing. If your teacher enabled feedback, one long-lived Feedback pull request is opened when you accept, and the same PR is reused for every later submission. If it couldn't be opened then, run accept again to retry (or it appears on your first submission when autograding is enabled).

whoami / login / logout

  • whoami — prints the authenticated GitHub user.
  • login — runs gh auth login -s admin:org -s read:org -s repo -s workflow (the unified scope set, shared with gh teacher login); add scopes with -s.
  • logout — runs gh auth logout.

Contributing

Building, testing, and linting the extension are documented in the cli/gh-student/ README.

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