Why gh-infra

The Problem

You have 10, 20, maybe 50 GitHub repositories. You want consistent settings across all of them — the same merge strategy, branch protection rules, topics, and shared files like CODEOWNERS and LICENSE.

The obvious answer is Infrastructure as Code. And for GitHub, that usually means Terraform.

Why not Terraform?

The Terraform GitHub Provider works. But for personal or small-team use, it comes with real overhead:

• State file management — You need a remote backend (S3, GCS, Terraform Cloud) to store and lock state. Without it, you risk state corruption or conflicts.
• HCL learning curve — Another language to learn and maintain. For simple repo settings, HCL feels heavy.
• Provider setup — Installing the provider, configuring authentication, pinning versions.
• CI/CD pipeline — You need a pipeline to run terraform plan and terraform apply, with secrets for the backend and GitHub token.
• State drift — If someone changes a setting through the GitHub UI, your state file is now out of sync. You need terraform import or terraform refresh to fix it.

All of this makes sense for managing cloud infrastructure at scale. But for managing GitHub repository settings, it’s too much.

Other alternatives

Tools like Probot Settings exist, but they apply changes immediately on push with no preview step. You can’t see what will change before it happens.

gh-infra’s Approach

gh-infra takes a different path:

• YAML instead of HCL — Declare what your repos should look like in plain YAML. No new language to learn.
• No state file — GitHub itself is the source of truth. Every plan fetches the live state and diffs directly. There’s nothing to store, lock, or lose.
• plan before apply — See exactly what will change before it happens. Review the diff, then apply with confidence.
• Just gh and a token — No provider installation, no remote backend, no GitHub App. If you can run gh, you can run gh infra.

Comparison

	Terraform	gh-infra
Language	HCL	YAML
State file	Required (remote backend)	None
Preview changes	terraform plan	gh infra plan
Authentication	Provider config + token	gh auth (already set up)
State drift	Manual import/refresh	Automatic (always fetches live state)
Setup time	30+ minutes	1 command

Who is it for?

• Individual developers managing personal repositories
• Small teams that want consistent repo settings without Terraform overhead
• Organizations that need to distribute shared files (LICENSE, CODEOWNERS, CI workflows) across many repos
• Anyone who thinks “I just want to change a repo setting in code” shouldn’t require a state backend

Ready to try it? Head to Getting Started.