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GitHub Agentic Workflows

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Re: GitHub Agentic Workflows

#91

Post by awesome_dude »

onionisafruit wrote: post #53

I noticed this unusual line in go.mod and got curious why it is using replace for this (typically you would `go get github.com/Masterminds/semver/v3@v3.4.0` instead). replace github.com/Masterminds/semver/v3 => github.com/Masterminds/semver/v3 v3.4.0 I found this very questionable PR[0]. It appears to have been triggered by dependabot creating an issue for a version upgrade -- which is probably unnecessary to begin w…

This is more evidence of my core complaint with AI (and why it's not AGI at this point)

The AI hasn't understood what's going on, instead it has pattern matched strings and used those patterns to create new strings that /look/ right, but fail upon inspection.

(The human involved is also failing my Turing test... )

Re: GitHub Agentic Workflows

#92

Post by root_axis »

spankalee wrote: post #66
onionisafruit wrote: post #53

I noticed this unusual line in go.mod and got curious why it is using replace for this (typically you would `go get github.com/Masterminds/semver/v3@v3.4.0` instead). replace github.com/Masterminds/semver/v3 => github.com/Masterminds/semver/v3 v3.4.0 I found this very questionable PR[0]. It appears to have been triggered by dependabot creating an issue for a version upgrade -- which is probably unnecessary to begin w…

This happens with all agents I've used and package.json files for npm. Instead of using `npm i foo` the agent string-edits package.json and hallucinates some version to install. Usually it's a kind of ok version, but it's not how I would like this to work. It's worse with renaming things in code. I've yet to see an agent be able to use refactoring tools (if they even exist in VS Code) instead of brute-forcing renames…

> brute-forcing renames with string replacement

That's their strategy for everything the training data can't solve. This is the main reason the autonomous agent swarm approach doesn't work for me. 20 bucks in tokens just obliterated with 5 agents exchanging hallucinations with each-other. It's way too easy for them to amplify each other's mistakes without a human to intervene.

Re: GitHub Agentic Workflows

#93

Post by pixl97 »

DSMan195276 wrote: post #43
eddythompson80 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m pretty sure they have used it before, or maybe it was githubnext. I’m also pretty sure I have seen many large companies and organizations launch developer facing tools and stuff through GitHub pages. The structure of GitHub pages is pretty simple. You know the user/org from the domain. I’m still not sure what’s phishy about it. Is it a broken promise?

It's phishy because it's breaks the rules people are generally told for avoiding phishing links, mainly that they should pay attention to the domain rather than subdomains. Browser even highlight that part specifically so that you pay attention to it, because you can't fake the real domain. The problem with what GitHub does here is that while `github.github.io` might be the real GitHub, `foobar-github.github.io` is n…

>It's phishy because it's breaks the rules people are generally told for avoiding phishing links

Bank: Avoid phishing links, this is what they look like.

Also bank: Here is an link from our actual marketing department that looks exactly like phishing.

Re: GitHub Agentic Workflows

#94

Post by girvo »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #90
embedding-shape wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This happens with all agents I've used and package.json files for npm. Instead of using `npm i foo` the agent string-edits package.json and hallucinates some version to install. When using codex, I usually have something like `Never add 3rd party libraries unless explicitly requested. When adding new libraries, use `cargo add $crate` without specifying the version, so we get the latest version.` and it seems to mak…

Eventually this specific issue will be RLHF’d out of existence. For now that should mostly solve the problem, but these models aren’t perfect at following instructions. Especially when you’re deep into the context window.

> Especially when you’re deep into the context window.

Though that is, at least to me, a bit of an anti-pattern for exactly that reason. I've found it far more successful to blow away the context and restart with a new prompt from the old context instead of having a very long running back-and-forward.

Its better than it was with the latest models, I can have them stick around longer, but it's still a useful pattern to use even with 4.6/5.3

Re: GitHub Agentic Workflows

#95

Post by mook »

idan wrote: post #72
SkyPuncher wrote: post #49

The landing page doesn't make it clear to me what value this is providing to me (as a user). I see all of these things that I can theoretically do, but I don't see (1) actual examples of those things (2) how this specific agentic workflow helps.

https://github.github.io/gh-aw/#gallery down the page has a list of concrete applications For examplpe, https://github.github.io/gh-aw/blog/2026-01-13-meet-the-work... has several examples of agentic workflows for managing issues and PRs, and those examples link to actual agentic workflow files you can read and use as a starting point for your own workflows. The value is "delegate chores that cannot be handled by a h…

Unfortunately only the first one (arborist) actually links to something that the workflow outputs (a created issue), so it's hard to see actual examples of what those things do. Some of the earlier comments said they output giant workflow files, but there weren't really any examples either.

Basically it feels like a long article that says "we have this new thing that does cool things", but never gives enough concrete details. It probably worked great for you, but it needs to communicate to random people off the street what the win is.

Re: GitHub Agentic Workflows

#96

Post by [deleted] »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #47
huevosabio wrote: post #36

Github should focus on getting their core offerings in shape first. I stopped using GH actions when I ran into this issue: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/151956#discuss... That was almost a year ago and to this date I still get updates of people falling into the same issue.

Ah, the critical problem dilemma. Some percentage of free users become paid users, but the free users take up an unreasonable amount of your time/energy/support. The solution seems simple. Buy their product.

[deleted]

Re: GitHub Agentic Workflows

#97

Post by teaearlgraycold »

girvo wrote: post #94
teaearlgraycold wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually this specific issue will be RLHF’d out of existence. For now that should mostly solve the problem, but these models aren’t perfect at following instructions. Especially when you’re deep into the context window.

> Especially when you’re deep into the context window. Though that is, at least to me, a bit of an anti-pattern for exactly that reason. I've found it far more successful to blow away the context and restart with a new prompt from the old context instead of having a very long running back-and-forward. Its better than it was with the latest models, I can have them stick around longer, but it's still a useful pattern t…

Opus has also clearly been trained to clear the context fairly often through the plan/code/plan cycle.

Re: GitHub Agentic Workflows

#98

Post by resquawk »

siscia wrote: post #59

I am somehow close to what MSFT and GitHub are doing here, mostly because I believe it is a great idea, and I am experimenting on it myself. Especially on the angle of automatic/continuos improvement ( https://github.github.io/gh-aw/blog/2026-01-13-meet-the-work... ) Often code is seen as an artifact, that it is valuable by itself. This was an incomplete view before, and it is now a completely wrong view. What is val…

Yes, great points.

Agentic workflows can mix algorithmic + agentic steps. There's a design pattern we call "DataOps" which is all about this - algorithmic extraction then an agentic step delivering a safe output.

See https://github.github.com/gh-aw/patterns/dataops/

Re: GitHub Agentic Workflows

#99

Post by resquawk »

onionisafruit wrote: post #71
bakibab wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are trying to fix it using this comment but cancelled mid way. Not sure why. https://github.com/github/gh-aw/pull/14548

Ha, they used my comment in the prompt. I love it.

Thanks! We fixed this in another PR. Appreciate the feedback

Re: GitHub Agentic Workflows

#100

Post by resquawk »

lemonlime227 wrote: post #6

Alternative, less phishy link: https://github.com/github/gh-aw This is on GitHub's official account. For some reason GitHub is deploying this on GitHub pages without a different domain?

Hey, sorry, yes the better link is https://github.github.com/gh-aw/ but we had a redirect set to https://github.github.io/gh-aw/

Both work and we've fixed the redirect now, thanks

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