Aexus Answers

🤖 Automate Issue Responses: Welcome New Contributors!

Alex Johnson
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🤖 Automate Issue Responses: Welcome New Contributors!

Hey everyone! 👋 Let's talk about making our awesome project even more welcoming and responsive. We're going to set up an auto-reply bot that greets new contributors when they open issues. This is super important for making sure everyone feels welcomed, knows where to get help, and can easily participate in discussions. Plus, it's a great way to point folks to our Discord server for more in-depth conversations and approvals of requests. Ready to dive in?

Why Automate Issue Responses?

So, why are we even bothering with this? Well, think about it. When someone takes the time to create an issue, they're putting in effort to help improve our project. The least we can do is acknowledge their contribution and point them in the right direction. Automating this process does a few key things:

  • Instant Gratification: Gives immediate feedback to the issue creator, letting them know their issue has been received.
  • Clear Communication: Provides a consistent welcome message with essential information (like the Discord link).
  • Improved Community Engagement: Encourages users to join the Discord server for further discussions, which can increase community engagement.
  • Saves Time: Automates the process, so maintainers don't have to manually welcome each new issue. This is a huge time saver as our project grows.

Essentially, this automation is a win-win. It’s a friendly face for new contributors and helps streamline the process. It makes a good first impression and keeps our community engaged.

Setting Up the Auto-Reply Bot: The How-To Guide

Alright, let's get our hands dirty and set up this automated magic! We're going to use GitHub Actions to make this happen. If you haven't used GitHub Actions before, don’t worry, it's pretty straightforward. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Create the Workflow File

First things first, we need to create a workflow file. This file tells GitHub Actions what to do and when to do it.

  1. File Location: Create a new file in your repository at .github/workflows/issue-auto-reply.yml. This is the standard location for your workflow files.

Step 2: Define the Trigger

We need to tell the workflow when to run. In our case, we want it to run whenever a new issue is created. We can do this by specifying the on: event.

 on:
  issues:
   types: [opened]
  • on: issues: This line tells the workflow to trigger on issue-related events.
  • types: [opened] This specifies that we want to trigger the workflow only when a new issue is opened.

Step 3: Create the Job

Next, we define a job that will perform the action we want.

jobs:
  issue-welcome:
   runs-on: ubuntu-latest
   steps:
    - name: Post welcome comment
      uses: actions/github-script@v7
      with:
       script: |
        github.rest.issues.createComment({
         issue_number: context.issue.number,
         owner: context.repo.owner,
         repo: context.repo.repo,
         body: 'Thank you for raising this issue! Our team will review it soon.\n\nFor more queries or discussions or approval of requests, please join the Discord server for further discussion: [Discord Link](https://discord.com/invite/Yn9g6KuWyA)'
        })

  • jobs: issue-welcome: Defines a job named issue-welcome.

  • runs-on: ubuntu-latest Specifies that the job should run on an Ubuntu virtual machine.

  • steps: Lists the steps the job will perform.

  • - name: Post welcome comment Describes the step.

  • uses: actions/github-script@v7 Uses the actions/github-script action. This action allows us to run JavaScript code within the workflow.

  • with: script: Defines the JavaScript code to execute.

  • github.rest.issues.createComment({...}) Uses the GitHub REST API to create a comment on the issue.

    • issue_number: context.issue.number Gets the issue number from the context.
    • owner: context.repo.owner Gets the repository owner from the context.
    • repo: context.repo.repo Gets the repository name from the context.
    • body: Specifies the body of the comment. This is our welcome message. Make sure to replace [Discord Link] with your actual Discord invite link.

Step 4: Customize the Message

Feel free to customize the welcome message! Here’s the message we proposed earlier:

Thank you for raising this issue! Our team will review it soon.

For more queries or discussions or approval of requests, please join the Discord server for further discussion: [Discord Link](https://discord.com/invite/Yn9g6KuWyA)

Make sure to include your actual Discord server invite link. You can also add any other relevant information or links to your project’s documentation, contributing guidelines, etc.

Step 5: Test and Iterate

Once you’ve created the workflow file and pushed it to your repository, it’s time to test it out. Open a new issue in your repository and see if the bot responds with the welcome message. If everything goes according to plan, you should see the comment posted within seconds of creating the issue.

If something doesn't work quite right, don't worry! Check the workflow runs in the

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