improve(github-cli): retry gh extension install before falling back to git clone - #1732
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Ryosuke Hiroe (rhiroe)
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September 9, 2026 03:43
…o git clone gh extension install failures fell through silently to the git-clone fallback. Retry it up to 3 times with backoff before falling back, since failures are most often transient (network/API rate limiting) rather than the extension being fundamentally unusable, and log each failed attempt's exit code so provisioning logs show why the fallback was hit. Extensions that require a build step (e.g. github/gh-stack) are not usable after a plain git clone. Improving the fallback itself (e.g. downloading a prebuilt release binary) would add significant logic and ongoing maintenance cost, so that path is not pursued here; instead, after cloning, check for the expected gh-<name> executable and exit 1 if it's missing, so a build-requiring extension fails provisioning loudly instead of leaving a broken extension in place.
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Ryosuke Hiroe (rhiroe)
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September 9, 2026 04:03
Kaniska (v-Kaniska244)
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Would you please investigate the test failure?
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Apparently, as of gh v2.101.0, GitHub Copilot is a built-in command (gh copilot) instead of an extension, so gh extension install github/gh-copilot fails. |
bash's 'if' returns 0 when the condition is false and there is no else, so 'install_status=$?' right after the if always read 0 instead of the actual gh failure code.
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I created a pull request: #1741 |
Ryosuke Hiroe (rhiroe)
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September 18, 2026 01:36
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gh extension install failures fell through silently to the git-clone fallback. Retry it up to 3 times with backoff before falling back, since failures are most often transient (network/API rate limiting) rather than the extension being fundamentally unusable, and log each failed attempt's exit code so provisioning logs show why the fallback was hit.
Extensions that require a build step (e.g. github/gh-stack) are not usable after a plain git clone. Improving the fallback itself (e.g. downloading a prebuilt release binary) would add significant logic and ongoing maintenance cost, so that path is not pursued here; instead, after cloning, check for the expected gh- executable and exit 1 if it's missing, so a build-requiring extension fails provisioning loudly instead of leaving a broken extension in place.