GitHub Action (infer-action)

inference-gateway/infer-action is the official GitHub Action wrapper for the infer CLI. It lets you run the Inference Gateway agent from a GitHub Actions workflow so that mentioning a trigger phrase in an issue or comment kicks off an automated, AI-driven response: plan posting, code edits, branch creation, and a pull request - all without leaving GitHub.

Current Version: v0.4.0. Pin to a tagged release (@v0.4.0) rather than @main in production workflows.

When to use it

Use infer-action when you want CI-driven inference instead of an interactive terminal session. Typical scenarios:

• Issue triage and automated fixes - mention @infer in an issue, the agent reads it, makes the change, and opens a PR.
• Automated code review - have the agent review pull requests on a schedule or on push.
• Scheduled agents - cron-driven release notes, changelog drafts, dependency upgrades, drift reports.
• Advisory-only workflows - run the agent in comment-only mode (enable-git-operations: false) to post suggestions without modifying the repo.

For local, interactive use the CLI remains the right tool; infer-action is the headless, event-driven counterpart.

Quick Start

Create .github/workflows/infer.yml:

name: Infer Agent

on:
  issues:
    types: [opened, edited]
  issue_comment:
    types: [created]

permissions:
  issues: write
  contents: write
  pull-requests: write

jobs:
  infer:
    runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
    steps:
      - uses: actions/[email protected]

      - uses: inference-gateway/[email protected]
        with:
          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          model: anthropic/claude-sonnet-4
          anthropic-api-key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}

Open an issue (or comment on one) containing @infer and the workflow takes over. The agent posts a "cooking" placeholder comment, runs, makes changes if needed, and finishes by either updating the comment with results or opening a pull request.

How it works

1. Trigger detection - the action inspects github.event.issue.title, github.event.issue.body, or github.event.comment.body for the configured trigger-phrase (default @infer). Comments authored by bot users are ignored to prevent recursion.
2. Reaction + cooking message - on a hit, the action adds an :eyes: reaction to the trigger comment and posts a placeholder "I'm cooking..." comment. Stale cooking messages from earlier runs are cleaned up.
3. CLI install - downloads infer at the pinned version and runs infer init --overwrite.
4. Git config - sets git user.name / user.email to the github-actions[bot] identity so any commits the agent makes have a valid author.
5. Agent run - executes the agent with the selected model and provider API keys. The bash whitelist is augmented with gh and git unless enable-git-operations: false.
6. PR creation - when the agent produces file changes, it creates fix/issue-{number}, commits, pushes, and opens a PR titled Fix #{number}: ... with Resolves #{number} in the body.
7. Result posting - the final comment summarises completed work, the model used, and links the PR if any.

Dynamic model selection

Override the workflow's default model on a per-issue or per-comment basis by including /model provider/model-name in the trigger text:

@infer /model openai/gpt-4 please analyze this bug and suggest a fix

The override is parsed by the action's trigger-detection step and exported as INFER_AGENT_MODEL for that run only.

Inputs

* Provide the key matching the provider of the chosen model. Multiple keys can be supplied so the same workflow handles overrides to different providers.

Outputs

Reference outputs in downstream steps via ${{ steps.<id>.outputs.result }}.

Recipes

PR review on push

Run the agent against every push to a PR branch and have it leave review comments without modifying the code.

name: AI PR Review

on:
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]

permissions:
  pull-requests: write
  contents: read

jobs:
  review:
    runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
    steps:
      - uses: actions/[email protected]
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0

      - uses: inference-gateway/[email protected]
        with:
          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          model: anthropic/claude-sonnet-4
          anthropic-api-key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}
          trigger-phrase: '@review'
          enable-git-operations: false
          custom-instructions: |
            - Focus on correctness, security, and performance.
            - Quote specific files and line numbers.
            - Do not modify code; post review feedback as a comment only.

Trigger by commenting @review on the PR.

Scheduled summary / drift report

Run a daily agent that reads recent commits and posts a summary to a tracking issue.

name: Daily Drift Summary

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 7 * * *' # 07:00 UTC daily
  workflow_dispatch:

permissions:
  issues: write
  contents: read

jobs:
  summary:
    runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
    steps:
      - uses: actions/[email protected]

      - uses: inference-gateway/[email protected]
        with:
          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          model: deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash
          deepseek-api-key: ${{ secrets.DEEPSEEK_API_KEY }}
          enable-git-operations: false
          max-turns: 20
          custom-instructions: |
            - Read the last 24 hours of commits on main.
            - Post a Markdown summary as a comment on issue #1 (the drift tracker).
            - Group changes by area (api, sdks, docs, infra).

Pair with a tracker issue containing the trigger phrase in its body so the schedule has something to fire against, or use workflow_dispatch to invoke the agent against a freshly created tracker issue.

Agent-driven release notes

On every tag push, generate release notes by running the agent over the commits since the previous tag.

name: Release Notes

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - 'v*'

permissions:
  contents: write
  issues: write

jobs:
  notes:
    runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
    steps:
      - uses: actions/[email protected]
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0

      - uses: inference-gateway/[email protected]
        with:
          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          model: anthropic/claude-sonnet-4
          anthropic-api-key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}
          bash-whitelist-commands: gh,git
          custom-instructions: |
            - Diff the current tag against the previous tag.
            - Categorise commits using Conventional Commits prefixes.
            - Publish the result via `gh release edit <tag> --notes-file ...`.

Whitelisting build tooling

The default bash whitelist is intentionally narrow. Add what your project needs:

- uses: inference-gateway/[email protected]
  with:
    github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    model: anthropic/claude-sonnet-4
    anthropic-api-key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}
    bash-whitelist-commands: npm,yarn,pnpm,node,python3,pytest
    bash-whitelist-patterns: '^npm run .*,^yarn .*,^pytest .*'

The whitelisted entries are added to the defaults - they do not replace them.

Secrets and least-privilege

Three principles to follow:

1. Never hardcode API keys. Store them in GitHub Secrets and reference them via ${{ secrets.NAME }}. The action only reads provider keys from inputs, which are injected as environment variables for the agent step.

2. Grant the minimum workflow permissions for the mode you want. For a PR-creating agent:

   YAML

   permissions:
     issues: write
     contents: write
     pull-requests: write
   

   For comment-only mode (enable-git-operations: false):

   YAML

   permissions:
     issues: write
     contents: read
   

3. Prefer a GitHub App over the default GITHUB_TOKEN for cross-repo or higher-trust workflows. The CLI's /init-github-action wizard automates the GitHub App setup (see the CLI docs). Using an App token lets PRs created by the agent trigger downstream CI - PRs opened with the default GITHUB_TOKEN do not, by GitHub design.

Additional hardening:

• Cap max-turns to prevent runaway loops and bound cost. 30-50 covers most issues.
• Set enable-git-operations: false whenever the agent only needs to read and comment.
• Whitelist bash commands narrowly - only add tools you trust the agent to invoke.
• Pin inference-gateway/infer-action@<tag> (not @main) so an upstream change cannot silently alter behaviour.

CLI wizard integration

The CLI ships an interactive wizard, /init-github-action, that automates everything in this page: creating a GitHub App, registering its credentials as secrets, and writing a workflow file under .github/workflows/infer.yml. Use the wizard for first-time setup; come back to this page when you need to customise inputs, write recipes by hand, or harden secrets handling beyond the defaults.

Related

• CLI - the infer binary that infer-action installs and drives.
• Configuration - environment variables understood by the gateway and CLI.
• infer-action repository - source, releases, and issue tracker.