GitHub Notifications Forwarder

Note: If you only want to forward personal notifications to Slack, you can accomplish what this tool does via native scheduled reminders in GitHub. Use this tool if you'd like to forward personal notifications to Webex or have more flexible filtering for Slack.

This tool can be run as a GitHub Action on a cron-like schedule or run locally on a cron. It forwards personal GitHub notifications to supported connector.

Currently there are only Webex and Slack connectors, though you're welcome to open a PR to add another.

Requires:

• A user-generated (classic) personal access token with the notifications scope enabled and any organization's SSO authorized.

For Slack

• Access to a Slack Bot with proper write permissions to the slack-destination (A Slack channel or DM).

For Webex

• Access to a Webex bot or a personal access token for your user.

Forwarded notifications can be filtered by their reason, repository, participation, or read status.

After a notification is forwarded, it can be marked as read.

TOC

Expand for Table of Contents

• Usage
• Finding a Slack Channel ID
• Inputs
  • Required Inputs
    • action-schedule
    • github-token
    • webex-token
    • webex-email
    • slack-token
    • slack-destination
  • Reason Filtering
    • filter-include-reasons
    • filter-exclude-reasons
  • Repository Filtering
    • filter-include-repositories
    • filter-exclude-repositories
  • Other Filtering
    • filter-only-participating
    • filter-only-unread
  • Optional Configuration
    • mark-as-read
    • sort-oldest-first
    • timezone
    • date-format
    • time-format
    • rollup-notifications
    • since-last-run
    • paginate-all
    • debug-logging

Usage

Below are examples of how you can use this tool:

Forward to Slack via GitHub Action

Action that forwards notifications to a Slack channel with channel id = "abc1234"

Runs every 3 hours (0 */3 * * *) to forward the past 3 hours of notifications

name: Forward Notifications to Slack

on:
  schedule:
    # Forwards notifications every 3 hours if there are new notifications
    # If you change this value to a different interval, update action-schedule found below to match it
    - cron: "0 */3 * * *"

jobs:
  forward-notifications:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Forward Notifications
        uses: "Ebonsignori/github-notifications-slack-forwarder"
        with:
          # Every 3 hours, must match on.schedule.cron
          action-schedule: "0 */3 * * *"
          # Set PERSONAL_TOKEN in your repo secrets
          github-token: ${{ secrets.PERSONAL_TOKEN }}
          # Set SLACK_TOKEN in your repo secrets
          slack-token: ${{ secrets.SLACK_TOKEN }}
          slack-destination: "abc1234"
          timezone: "PST"

Forward to Webex via GitHub Action

Action that forwards notifications to user@gmail.com in Webex

Runs every 3 hours (0 */3 * * *) to forward the past 3 hours of notifications

name: Forward Notifications to Webex

on:
  schedule:
    # Forwards notifications every 3 hours if there are new notifications
    # If you change this value to a different interval, update action-schedule found below to match it
    - cron: "0 */3 * * *"

jobs:
  forward-notifications:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Forward Notifications
        uses: "Ebonsignori/github-notifications-slack-forwarder"
        with:
          # Every 3 hours, must match on.schedule.cron
          action-schedule: "0 */3 * * *"
          # Set PERSONAL_TOKEN in your repo secrets
          github-token: ${{ secrets.PERSONAL_TOKEN }}
          # Set WEBEX in your repo secrets
          webex-token: ${{ secrets.WEBEX_TOKEN }}
          webex-email: "user@gmail.com"
          timezone: "PST"

Use local CRON to forward notifications

1. Clone this repo
2. Copy config-private.example.yml to config-private.yml and fill in the necessary secrets for your configuration
3. Further configure this tools configuration in config.yml
4. Make sure you have NodeJS v18+ installed locally
5. Setup a cron job on your local system with a path to the NodeJS executable, node <your-cloned-directory-location>/dist/local/index.js

Using a GitHub Action

To forward your own notifications via a GitHub action, create a private repo, e.g. ebonsignori/notifcations and copy either of the above examples to .github/workflows/forward-notifications.yml.

Then set relevant secrets like PERSONAL_TOKEN, WEBEX_TOKEN and/or SLACK_TOKEN in your repositories settings under the Secrets and variables tab.

Further customize your action and how it filters notifications using the inputs found below.

Finding A Slack Channel ID

Click for details

In order for a Slack bot to DM you, it needs privileges to.

In order for your bot to post to a Slack channel, you need to invite it with /invite @botname.

To find the channel's slack-destination, you can press on the channel's name or at the top of your DMs to find the "Channel ID".

Inputs

Actions

All configuration for the action is set via inputs, e.g.

with:
  mark-as-read: "true"

Where mark-as-read is an input.

Local / CRON

Configuration is set in config.yml and config-private.yml (copied from config-private.example.yml)

Format

For true/false inputs, a "true" or "false" string is required.

For lists, a comma-separated string is required, e.g. "apples, bananas, pears".

Required Inputs

Only github-token and action-schedule are required for every run, the others are required if you want to forward to that respective connector (e.g. Slack).

Required Inputs

action-schedule

The schedule used by the workflow cron that this action is called from.

e.g. Use "0 */3 * * *" to check every three hours for the past 3 hours of notifications.

You can use Crontab.guru to find a schedule that works for you.

github-token

A (classic) personal access token with the notifications scope checked. Store the token in your repository's secrets and access it in the action as an input, e.g. ${{ secrets.PERSONAL_TOKEN }}.

If you receive notifications for a private organization, you need to authorize that organization's SSO from the tokens page. Select Configure SSO and authorize the desired organization(s).

webex-token

A token for a Webex Bot or User that has permissions to send messages to webex-email. Store token in your repository's secrets and access it in the action as an input, e.g. ${{ secrets.WEBEX_TOKEN}}.

webex-email

The email of the Webex user that you want to receive personal Slack notifications in their DMS.

slack-token

A token for a Slack App that is invited into the slack-destination and has permissions to post there. Store token in your repository's secrets and access it in the action as an input, e.g. ${{ secrets.SLACK_TOKEN }}.

slack-destination

The ID of a slack channel or DM that you wish your notifications to go to. See Finding The Channel ID for how to find the ID of your preferred destination.

Reason Filtering

For reason filters, refer to About notification reasons for a more detailed explanation of each reason.

A list of accepted reasons can be found here.

Reason Filtering

filter-include-reasons

Limits the included notifications to the list of reasons included in a comma-separated string, e.g. "assign, author, comment, mention, review_requested".

Defaults to all reasons.

filter-exclude-reasons

Omits notifications with the listed reasons from forwarding to slack using a comma-separated string, e.g. "security_alert, "push".

Defaults to all no reasons.

Repository Filtering

Filter which repositories are included/excluded by writing them in a comma-separated string in the form "owner/repo", e.g. Ebonsignori/github-notifications-slack-forwarder.

Repository Filtering

filter-include-repositories

Limits the forwarded notifications to the list of repositories included in a comma-separated string, e.g. "github/github, Ebonsignori/my-sites".

Defaults to empty, "" which allows all repositories to be included.

filter-exclude-repositories

Omits forwarding notifications that are in repositories included in the comma-separated string, e.g. github/howie.

Defaults to empty, "" which filters out no repositories.

Other Filtering

Other Filtering

filter-only-participating

Set to "true" to only forward notifications in which the user is directly participating or mentioned in.

Defaults to "false".

filter-only-unread

Set to "false" to include notifications marked as "read".

Defaults to "true".

Optional Configuration

Other Filtering

mark-as-read

Set to "true" to mark forwarded notifications as "read".

Defaults to "true".

sort-oldest-first

Sort Slack message(s) by oldest notifications first.

Defaults to "true".

timezone

Timezone you're located in for displaying dates and times in Slack messages.

Note You can set this for display, but the timezone of the action runner should not be changed from its default "UTC".

Defaults to "UTC".

date-format

Customize dates in Slack messages using dayjs Date format.

Defaults to "M/DD h:mm A".

time-format

Customize times in Slack messages using dayjs Date format.

Defaults to "h:mm A".

rollup-notifications

By default notifications are sent as a single Slack message.

Set to "false" to send a new Slack messages for each notification (may run into rate limiting problems depending on bot limits).

Defaults to "true".

since-last-run

Checks the last 100 notifications since the last action-schedule was fired. Set to "false" to check the last 100 notifications regardless of the last action-schedule.

You disabled, recommended to have filter-only-unread set to "true"

Defaults to "true".

paginate-all

With since-last-run enabled, the action checks the last 100 notifications since the last action-schedule was fired. Set to "true" to check all existing notifications at the cost of a bigger fetch.

Useful if you receive a lot of notifications and not all are being forwarded to you, for instance if you have an action-schedule with long gaps between runs, or if you'd like to run once with mark-as-read set to "true" to mark every backlogged notification as "true".

it will take a long time to run and might hit the GitHub API rate limit. Use with caution.

Defaults to "false".

debug-logging

Set to true to enable debug logging and an artifact upload of any notifications.