GitHub CLI and Claude Code

The GitHub CLI (gh) works with Diffinery the way it works with a GitHub Enterprise Server: in a clone of a Diffinery repository, gh pr create, gh pr view, gh pr checks, gh pr merge and the other pull request commands talk to Diffinery. Claude Code uses the same setup to show the pull request of the branch you're on and its CI, because it finds pull requests through gh's sign-in. Both go through Diffinery's GraphQL API and REST API.

#Set it up

You need a recent gh (Diffinery is tested with 2.89) and a Diffinery token. With the Diffinery CLI signed in, one command signs gh in too:

diffinery login
diffinery auth setup-gh

diffinery auth setup-gh runs gh auth login --hostname diffinery.com --with-token --git-protocol https and hands gh your token on its standard input, so the token never shows in your shell history or on screen. gh keeps it in its own credential store.

Without the Diffinery CLI, create a token under Settings → Access tokens (write scope, so gh can open and merge pull requests), save it to a file, and give it to gh the same way:

gh auth login --hostname diffinery.com --with-token --git-protocol https < ~/diffinery-token.txt

In CI or a container, set the host and token in the environment instead. gh and Claude Code both read them:

export GH_HOST=diffinery.com
export GH_ENTERPRISE_TOKEN=...   # from your secret store

Check it with gh api user --hostname diffinery.com --jq .login, which prints your login.

#Use gh

In a clone whose origin is on Diffinery, gh picks the host from the remote:

gh pr create --title "Fix the parser" --body "..." --draft
gh pr view --web
gh pr checks --watch
gh pr ready
gh pr merge --auto --squash

gh changes things with your token's permissions and Diffinery's rules: branch protection, required checks and reviews, and the agent guardrails apply as they do on the web and over REST. gh pr merge --auto turns on Diffinery's auto-merge, which merges once the required checks pass. When nothing blocks the merge, gh merges at once.

#Claude Code's pull request badge

Claude Code shows the pull request for the branch a session is on, and follows it as it changes:

• In the terminal, the footer shows PR #12 for the current branch's open pull request.
• In the Claude desktop app, the session's pull request chip shows the pull request and its CI. Claude Code reports the branch's pull request when a session starts, and a pull request it opens with gh pr create as soon as gh prints its URL.

There's nothing to set up beyond signing gh in. Claude Code treats any host other than github.com as GitHub Enterprise: it reads the remote of the folder it's in, gets the token from GH_ENTERPRISE_TOKEN (when GH_HOST names the host) or from gh auth token --hostname diffinery.com, and asks Diffinery's REST and GraphQL APIs for the pull request, its review decision and its CI counts. In the desktop app, the folder has to be one you've trusted.

Sessions in Claude Code on the web (claude.ai/code) and project threads run in Anthropic's cloud and get their pull request cards from Anthropic's GitHub integration, which doesn't reach Diffinery. Those sessions can still use gh and the MCP server to open pull requests and follow CI, and the diffinery-ci plugin, which the repository's Agent setup script adds, tells Claude when CI on its pushed commit passes or fails. For a live view of every check in the terminal, the desktop app and VS Code, see CI status in Claude.

#Troubleshooting