Community profile and issueTemplates do not report templates the community page counts

[jmrplens]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

API

Body

Summary

The community profile page marks "Issue templates" as added and scores the repository 100 %, while the two APIs that expose that fact answer as if the repository had none:

• REST GET /repos/{owner}/{repo}/community/profile returns "files": { "issue_template": null }
• GraphQL Repository.issueTemplates returns []

Both happen when the templates live under .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/ as YAML issue forms, which is the format GitHub's own documentation recommends. The REST field is also null for a directory of Markdown templates, so the two gaps are not the same gap.

Reproduction

Repository: jmrplens/gitlab-mcp-server (public). .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/ holds bug-report.yml, documentation.yml, enhancement.yml, feature-request.yml and config.yml (blank_issues_enabled: false, one contact link).

The community page, https://github.com/jmrplens/gitlab-mcp-server/community, shows the checklist complete, "Issue templates" with the green check, and 100 %.

REST:

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" -H "X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2022-11-28" \
  https://api.github.com/repos/jmrplens/gitlab-mcp-server/community/profile \
  | jq '{health_percentage, issue_template: .files.issue_template}'

{ "health_percentage": 100, "issue_template": null }

GraphQL:

{ repository(owner: "jmrplens", name: "gitlab-mcp-server") { issueTemplates { name filename } } }

{ "data": { "repository": { "issueTemplates": [] } } }

The same happens on jmrplens/phonometry (four YAML forms, 100 %, null, []).

What each API does report

Measured against public repositories with the other template layouts, same day:

Repository	Layout	Community page	REST files.issue_template	GraphQL issueTemplates
jmrplens/gitlab-mcp-server	.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/*.yml (forms)	added, 100 %	null	[]
cli/cli	.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/*.md (3 Markdown)	100 %	null	3 templates
CocoaPods/CocoaPods	.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE.md (single file)	75 %	the file	1 template
github/gh-ost	.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE.md (single file)	100 %	the file	[]

So:

1. REST files.issue_template is non-null only for the legacy single file .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE.md. A directory of templates, Markdown or YAML, gives null even though the page and the score count it. The endpoint's documentation says it reports "the presence of ISSUE_TEMPLATE, PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE, README, and CONTRIBUTING files", which a reader takes to mean the same presence the page shows.
2. GraphQL issueTemplates lists Markdown templates in the directory but not YAML issue forms, and not the legacy single file either (github/gh-ost has one and gets []).

Why it matters

Anything that reads the community profile through the API concludes that a repository following the current recommendation (issue forms) has no issue templates, and cannot reconcile that with the 100 % the same response carries. The only way to get the truth today is to list .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/ through the contents API or a GraphQL Tree and count entries other than config.yml, which is what I ended up doing.

Ask

• REST: make files.issue_template reflect the same detection the community page and health_percentage use (a directory of templates counts), or document that the field only reports the single legacy file.
• GraphQL: include YAML issue forms in Repository.issueTemplates (an IssueTemplate today carries name, title, body, filename, about, assignees, labels; a form would fit with body empty or as a new IssueForm type), and the legacy single file for consistency with REST.

The REST half is also filed against the OpenAPI description, so the field can at least document the limitation: github/rest-api-description#7187.

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