Auto Invite Collaborator

Automatically invite users to your repository via GitHub Issues. No more manual adding—just open an issue with a keyword and get invited instantly.

Speak, friend, and enter

What It Does

When someone opens an issue with the keyword "invite me" (or "Invite me"), this workflow:

1. ✅ Sends them a collaborator invitation
2. 📧 Posts a confirmation comment
3. 🔒 Closes the issue automatically

Perfect for educational projects.

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Setup (2 Steps)

Step 1: Create a Fine-Grained Personal Access Token

1. Go to your GitHub profile → Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens → Fine-grained tokens
2. Click Generate new token
3. Give it a name (e.g., "Invite Students Token")
4. Under Repository access, select your repository
5. Under Permissions, set:
   • Administration: Read and Write (needed to invite collaborators)
   • Issues: Read and Write (needed to comment and close issues)
6. Click Generate token and copy it immediately

Step 2: Add Token to Repository Secrets

1. Go to your repository → Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions
2. Click New repository secret
3. Name: INVITE_TOKEN
4. Paste your token into the Secret field
5. Click Add secret

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How to Use

1. Add the workflow file to .github/workflows/auto-invite.yml in your repository
2. Anyone can now open an issue with the title containing "invite me"
3. They'll automatically get invited with push permissions and receive a notification

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Customizing the Keyword

Edit the condition in the workflow file:

if: contains(github.event.issue.title, 'your custom keyword') || contains(github.event.issue.title, 'Your Custom Keyword')

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Workflow File

Place this in .github/workflows/auto-invite.yml:

name: Auto Invite Collaborator

on:
  issues:
    types: [opened, edited]

jobs:
  invite:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: contains(github.event.issue.title, 'invite me') || contains(github.event.issue.title, 'Invite me')
    
    steps:
      - name: Invite User via GitHub CLI
        run: |
          gh api \
            --method PUT \
            -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" \
            /repos/${{ github.repository }}/collaborators/${{ github.event.issue.user.login }} \
            -f permission='push'
        env:
          GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.INVITE_TOKEN }}

      - name: Close the issue with a comment
        run: |
          gh issue comment ${{ github.event.issue.number }} --body "Hi @${{ github.event.issue.user.login }}! 👋 An invitation has been sent to your GitHub account and email. Please check your notifications or email to accept it and start collaborating!"
          gh issue close ${{ github.event.issue.number }}
        env:
          GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.INVITE_TOKEN }}

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ToDo:

• check if issue could be deleted (instead of closed) to keep passphrase "secret"

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Security Notes

• The fine-grained token is scoped to only this repository
• Grants permissions for administration, so be careful, there'll be 🐉

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License

MIT