GitHub issue intake

This guide uses the GitHub tracker and your existing GitHub authentication. GitLab is also supported. Follow GitLab authentication and use the provider selection described below.

Configure intake

Intake needs two opt-ins, and both default to off: enable it on the daemon and configure a project with an assignee filter. Each matching issue can start a worker session, so use the filter to limit which issues Orchestrator handles.

For the desktop app, add AO_TRACKER_INTAKE=on to the environment your login shell exports, such as ~/.zshrc, then relaunch Orchestrator. The app passes that environment to its daemon. For a standalone daemon, set the variable in its launch environment and restart it.

Then configure the project. These flags change only the intake settings and keep the rest of the project config.

ao project set-config my-app \
  --tracker-intake \
  --tracker-repo owner/repo \
  --tracker-assignee alice

When trackerIntake.provider is omitted, Orchestrator infers the provider from the project's Git remote. GitHub hosts select github; other remote hosts select gitlab. An empty or unparseable remote falls back to github. When the repository is omitted, Orchestrator can also derive it from that remote.

For an explicit GitLab intake configuration, set trackerIntake.provider to gitlab in the full configuration object through the daemon API. The CLI has no --tracker-provider flag on project set-config; that flag belongs to spawn. If you use --config-json, it replaces the full project config, so preserve all other project settings; see the full-config warning. The intake portion of the object is:

{
  "trackerIntake": {
    "enabled": true,
    "provider": "gitlab",
    "repo": "group/project",
    "assignee": "alice"
  }
}

This is a fragment to merge into the full configuration, not a replacement for it. Use ao project get my-app --json to inspect the stored configuration, keeping in mind that its output omits effort.

If AO_TRACKER_INTAKE is unset, the project config is still stored and validated, but no sessions are spawned. The daemon logs a warning at startup naming how many projects have intake configured while the flag is off.

For one GitLab issue without enabling intake, use ao spawn --project my-app --name issue-42 --tracker-provider gitlab --issue 42.

Current boundary

Matching issues may create sessions and provide issue context. The current intake path is read-only: it does not post comments, assign workflow states, or close issues after a session finishes. PR and CI observation belongs to Orchestrator's separate source-control capability.