Microsoft's GitHub: CLI 1.0 Is Out, So You Can Now Do GitHub Tasks From The Terminal

GitHub has released GitHub CLI 1.0, a command-line tool that lets developers create and check on pull requests and issues from the terminal. 

GitHub released CLI in beta this February for GitHub Team and Enterprise Cloud customers, but back then not for its self-hosted product for private repositories, GitHub Enterprise Server. 

Now that GitHub CLI has exited beta, it is available to use on repositories hosted on GitHub Enterprise Server 2.2 and above. Apparently, it was the most-requested feature during the beta phase.

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The Microsoft-owned code-hosting site says users can run their GitHub workflow from the terminal, from issues through to releases. 

Users can also call the GitHub API to script many actions, set a custom alias for any command, and connect to GitHub Enterprise Server and GitHub.com. 

GitHub notes on its page for GitHub CLI that many of its users are keen on the open-source 'hub' project. Hub is a command-line extension or 'wrapper' for Git that makes it easier to work with GitHub. Git is the version-control system created by Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds. 

Hub is maintained by a GitHub employee and is very similar to GitHub CLI but, according to the GitHub CLI team, hub is weighed down by a decade of design decisions that aren't necessarily focused on GitHub workflows.    

"The GitHub CLI team is focused solely on building out the new tool, gh [GitHub CLI]. We aren't shutting down hub or doing anything to change it. It's an open-source project and will continue to exist as long as it's maintained and keeps receiving contributions," the team explained. 

"GitHub CLI is built and maintained by a team of people who work on the tool on behalf of GitHub. When there's something wrong with it, people can reach out to GitHub support or create an issue in the issue tracker, where an employee at GitHub will respond."

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GitHub CLI is available for Windows, macOS and Linux. 

Developers can use GitHub CLI commands to clone repositories, find the status of bugs that need fixing, and create a pull request on GitHub, while colleagues can use it to check a peer's pull request before it is finally merged to the main branch. 

The GitHub CLI team are planning for future versions of the tool to include support for editing issues and pull requests, as well as adding comments.