How to add extensions to gh (the GitHub cli)?

anders · September 9, 2024, 12:59pm

I have the packages gh and gh-markdown-preview installed, but gh markdown-preview does not work. Presumably this is because gh wants to handle the installation of extensions:

This is how Home Manager solves the problem:

github.com

nix-community/home-manager/blob/be47a2bdf278c57c2d05e747a13ed31cef54a037/modules/programs/gh.nix#L158


      
                    )
                  fi
                '';
          
          
    programs.git.extraConfig.credential = mkIf cfg.gitCredentialHelper.enable
                (builtins.listToAttrs (map (host:
                  lib.nameValuePair host {
                    helper = "${cfg.package}/bin/gh auth git-credential";
                  }) cfg.gitCredentialHelper.hosts));
          
          
    xdg.dataFile."gh/extensions" = mkIf (cfg.extensions != [ ]) {
                source = pkgs.linkFarm "gh-extensions" (builtins.map (p: {
                  name = p.pname;
                  path = "${p}/bin";
                }) cfg.extensions);
              };
            };
          }

Any solution without using Home Manager? (In particular, I am looking for a solution that lets me have gh with the extension gh-markdown-preview in a flake development environment.)

h7x4 · September 17, 2024, 3:54pm

Seems like the developers have decided against sourcing extensions from $PATH: get extension from $PATH · Issue #6672 · cli/cli · GitHub

I sometimes run gh-dash as is, without trying to access it through gh.

You could try to create a bash wrapper called gh that decides whether to execute gh or an extension, or you could generate a directory in the nix store with the extension list and pass it to gh via the GH_CONFIG_DIR environment variable?

anders · September 18, 2024, 1:19pm

This solution suffices for me, thanks for the suggestions!