Create and Link GitHub Issues for Incidents

Once you’ve installed the AppSignal GitHub integration, given AppSignal permission to read and write issues in your GitHub repositories, and connected your AppSignal app to the desired repo, you can convert AppSignal incidents into GitHub issues. You can also link issues and pull requests that already exist, and follow their status from the incident.

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Create a GitHub issue from an incident

Open the relevant namespace for your AppSignal application, select Errors in the side navigation, and then Issue list. Open the error incident you want to send to GitHub. On the incident’s Summary tab, select Send to GitHub in the Actions panel. This opens a screen that allows you to create a GitHub issue. AppSignal fills in the title and description for you. The description includes a link to the AppSignal incident, the error message, and, when applicable, up to the last 10 lines of the backtrace. You can modify the title and description, but we recommend keeping the incident link and the backtrace. Select Create GitHub issue to create the issue in the GitHub repo your application’s namespace is connected to. The new issue appears in the Actions panel, and the incident’s logbook records Sent the issue to GitHub. If AppSignal can’t create the issue, the create screen tells you why. Either your app isn’t linked to a GitHub repository yet, or the AppSignal GitHub app has no Issues (write) permission or no access to the repository. To fix either, see Link AppSignal to your app’s repository on GitHub. You can change the repo your AppSignal application’s namespaces are connected to in your AppSignal application’s settings page. You can also manage the access rights of AppSignal in your GitHub integration settings.

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Link an existing issue or pull request

Often the fix is already underway: someone opened a pull request, or the bug has a GitHub issue. Drop its link in a note, and AppSignal tracks it for you. The incident shows where the fix stands, and nobody has to ask whether it shipped. Open the incident’s Summary tab, write a note in the Logbook box with the GitHub issue URL, and select Post note. AppSignal recognizes two forms of reference anywhere in the note:

• A full URL, such as https://github.com/acme/shop/issues/123 or https://github.com/acme/shop/pull/456.
• The shorthand acme/shop#123.

AppSignal only links references to repositories of the GitHub organization, or user account, that owns the linked repository. An app linked to acme/shop also links references to acme/shop-api, but ignores references to other organizations. An issue that is already linked is not linked again, so editing the note does not create duplicates. The logbook records Linked #123 on GitHub, with the number linking to the issue. The issue also appears in the Actions panel with its status. The AppSignal MCP server links issues the same way when an AI agent writes a note on an incident.

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Follow linked issues from the incident

The Actions panel shows a button for every linked issue and pull request, labeled View #123 on GitHub. The buttons appear in the order the issues were linked. Hover over a button to see when the issue was linked. Select it to open the issue on GitHub, or to re-create the issue. Re-creating removes the link and opens the create screen again. Each button shows the issue’s status as a badge: Open, Closed, or, for pull requests, Merged. AppSignal reads the status when you link an issue. It updates the status when the issue or pull request is closed, reopened, or merged on GitHub. Every status change also shows in the incident’s logbook, for example Changed the status of acme/shop#123 on GitHub from open → merged. The entry shows who made the change on GitHub. If that person is a member of your AppSignal app and has linked their GitHub account, the entry shows their AppSignal name. Status updates need the Issues and Pull requests permissions of the AppSignal GitHub app. When AppSignal asks for them, an owner of your GitHub organization has to approve the new permissions on GitHub. Without them, linking still works, but linked issues show no status badge. The incident is now the one place to check on a fix: which issues and pull requests belong to it, and whether each is open, merged, or closed. To jump from a backtrace line to the code that shipped, set up backtrace links next.