How to automate Github using an Axiom.ai automation

Github (opens new window) is a cloud-based platform for version control and collaboration, built around Git. It allows developers to store, manage, and track changes to their code, collaborate with others, and automate workflows. Key features include repositories, pull requests, issues, actions (CI/CD), and security tools. It’s widely used for open-source and private projects.

Github offers many features around the use of their API and webhooks, for this guide, we will be concentrating on webhooks.

# Getting started

To get started you will need to have the following prepared:

  • A Github account
  • A Github repository
  • An Axiom.ai account
  • An Axiom.ai subscription1
  • Your Axiom.ai API - API Documentation

1 Subscription is required to use the "Receive data from another app" step

# Triggering an automated based on Github repository event

Github offers the ability to send a webhook when an event occurs within a repository. This defaults to push events, but you can configure this to notify you of all events, or specific events. To create a new webhook, follow the steps below:

  1. Open your repository.
  2. Navigate to "Settings".
  3. Navigate to "Webhooks".
  4. Click "Add webhook".

To configure your new webhook, use the following settings:

  • Payload URL - the Axiom.ai endpoint, this will include your automation name and API key: https://lar.axiom.ai/api/v3/trigger?key=<KEY>&name=<NAME>2.
  • Content type - application/json
  • Events - configure as needed, keep in mind Axiom.ai's rate limits if you have a repository with a lot of activity.
  • Save your work

2 The automation name should be encoded, for example "Hello world" → "Hello+world". Learn more at w3schools (opens new window).

Once the webhook has been set up, you'll need to add a Receive data from another app step to allow the automation to be triggered by the webhook. The data passed to this step from the webhook will be accessible within your automation.

💡 Grabbing a sample of the payload would allow you to create 'test data' within this step

# Testing your workflow

To test your workflow, trigger an event on your repository - for example, creating a commit to the repository. Open up your Axiom.ai extension and view the Run reports to ensure that the automation has run. Review any errors and make changes as required. If you experience issues, see common errors for common resolutions.

# Wrapping up

Getting notifications of events from your Github repository can be helpful for your team to keep track of changes to the repository. Triggering your automations based on these events can allow you to trigger more complex workflows. See our guides for more interesting services that you could integrate into your automation, such as using Slack or Discord for notifications, or using Airtable, Supabase, or Tadabase, to create a logging system for your repository events.

We'd love to hear about what you do with this, let us know over in our community (opens new window)

Testing was completed on 24 February 25, features in Discord or Axiom.ai may change from time to time and updates may need to be made.

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