Create Gtihub labels from Bash

create_labels.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Colours picked from https://robinpowered.com/blog/best-practice-system-for-organizing-and-tagging-github-issues/

###
# Label definitions
###
declare -A LABELS

# Platform
LABELS["ruby"]="BFD4F2"
LABELS["rails"]="BFD4F2"

# Problems
LABELS["bug"]="EE3F46"
LABELS["security"]="EE3F46"
LABELS["production"]="F45D43"

# Mindless
LABELS["chore"]="FEF2C0"
LABELS["legal"]="FFF2C1"

# Experience
LABELS["copy"]="FFC274"
LABELS["design"]="FFC274"
LABELS["ux"]="FFC274"

# Environment
LABELS["staging"]="FAD8C7"
LABELS["test"]="FAD8C7"

# Feedback
LABELS["discussion"]="CC317C"
LABELS["rfc"]="CC317C"
LABELS["question"]="CC317C"

# Improvements
LABELS["enhancement"]="5EBEFF"
LABELS["optimizaiton"]="5EBEFF"

# Additions
LABELS["feature"]="91CA55"

# Pending
LABELS["in progress"]="FBCA04"
LABELS["watchlist"]="FBCA04"

# Inactive
LABELS["invalid"]="D2DAE1"
LABELS["wontfix"]="D2DAE1"
LABELS["duplicate"]="D2DAE1"
LABELS["on hold"]="D2DAE1"

###
# Get a token from Github
###
if [ ! -f ".token" ]; then
  read -p "Please enter your Github username: " user
  read -p "Please enter your 6 digit two-factor-authentication code: " otp_code

  curl -u "$user" -H "X-Github-OTP: $otp_code" -d '{"scopes":["repo", "public_repo"], "note":"Creating Labels"}' "https://api.github.com/authorizations" | jq -r '.token' > .token
fi

TOKEN=$(cat .token)

read -p "Who owns the repo you want labels on?: " owner
read -p "What repo do you want labels on?: " repo

for K in "${!LABELS[@]}"; do
  CURL_OUTPUT=$(curl -s -H "Authorization: token $TOKEN" -X POST "https://api.github.com/repos/$owner/$repo/labels" -d "{\"name\":\"$K\", \"color\":\"${LABELS[$K]}\"}")
  HAS_ERROR=$(echo "$CURL_OUTPUT" | jq -r '.errors')

  if [ ! -z "$HAS_ERROR" ]; then
    ERROR=$(echo "$CURL_OUTPUT" | jq -r '.errors[0].code')

    if [ "$ERROR" == "already_exists" ]; then
      # We update
      echo "'$K' already exists. Updating..."
      CURL_OUTPUT=$(curl -s -H "Authorization: token $TOKEN" -X PATCH "https://api.github.com/repos/$owner/$repo/labels/${K/ /%20}" -d "{\"name\":\"$K\", \"color\":\"${LABELS[$K]}\"}")
    else
      echo "Unknown error: $ERROR"
      echo "Output from curl: "
      echo "$CURL_OUTPUT"
      echo "Exiting..."
      exit;
    fi
  else
    echo "Created '$K'."
  fi
done

The colours have been taken from https://robinpowered.com/blog/best-practice-system-for-organizing-and-tagging-github-issues/

This of course only works if you are using two-factor-authentication (which you are!)

It also requires jq for parsing JSON via cURL.

@omegahm This is fantastic. Are these colors custom, or the ones that GitHub has pre-defined?

Hi, how to run this script on GitHub? :)

@kevenSuttle These are the colours from the above mentioned link. I took the Google Chrome color picker and put it into the bash script.

@hobi You'll have to download it as create_labels.sh and then run

$ chmod +x create_labels.sh
$ ./create_labels.sh

from your terminal. The first time it'll prompt you for a username and a 6 digit 2fa code. Then it'll prompt you for a repo-owner and an actual repo to put these labels on.

I'm getting this:

./create_labels.sh: line 8: declare: -A: invalid option
declare: usage: declare [-afFirtx] [-p] [name[=value] ...]
./create_labels.sh: line 45: in progress: syntax error in expression (error token is "progress")
./create_labels.sh: line 52: on hold: syntax error in expression (error token is "hold")

You're probably running on bash < 4.0.

Associative arrays (-A) require bash >= 4.0

Mac OS X comes with bash 3.2

Also there is an error with this code.

if [ "$ERROR" == "already_exists" ]; then
   # some code
else
   # else code
   exit;
fi

If $ERROR is not equal to already_exists... the program will exit... prematurely.

@ChrisTerBeke This script might be full of errors for all I know 😏 It was thrown together rather quickly. What's even better is that I get this:

bash-4.3$ man declare
No manual entry for declare

but as @arianf says, I am running bash < 4.0.

---

@arianf Yes, if there's an error, and that error isn't already_exists, then it's a more "serious" error, which this script doesn't handle, thus it exits.

I made some modifications because I was having trouble with the token creation and error notifications, here's my edited version:

https://gist.github.com/Chompas/fb158eb01204d03f783d

Thanks for creating this script. Couple of issues:

• As well as installing bash 4, you may need to install jq - https://stedolan.github.io/jq/download/.
• The script was having trouble retrieving the personal access token from GitHub so I had to manually copy it into the .token file.

All working beautifully now. Thanks again!

I had an issue that caused the script to exit on each creation of a label. It ran without errors when updating. I was able to fix it by replacing line 71 with

HAS_ERROR=$(echo "$CURL_OUTPUT" | jq 'has("errors")')

and then using

if [ "$HAS_ERROR" = true ]; then

on line 73.
I forked it here: https://gist.github.com/MatthiasKunnen/b7c4f812ddc6a8bb217160ab4f048e0c.

Shame it doesn't work for Gitlab! Do you think that would be an easy thing to add?

Looks great, how would that work if you had users who didn't have 2FA enabled?