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ClickRuntime

Connect GitHub to Gmail

Not everyone who cares about engineering work lives in GitHub. Connecting it to Gmail sends changelogs to customers, bug alerts to the right inbox and a drafted timesheet to you, and turns failure emails from backup jobs into issues that get fixed.
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Ideas

What you can do with GitHub and Gmail

Changelogs, issue alerts, timesheets, status updates and job failures, between GitHub and your Gmail inbox. These are ready-made starting points. Anything else you can describe works too.
WeeklyAI

Draft your weekly timesheet from email and commits

Every Friday you get an email with a draft timesheet, grouped by client and task, built from the emails you sent and the code you committed that week.

See how it works
Every hour

Open GitHub issues from failed backup emails

When a backup or scheduled job emails a failure report, a GitHub issue is opened with the details and you get an email with the link.

See how it works
Every 5 minutes

Monitor your site and update a GitHub status page

If your site goes down you get an email within five minutes, and the status page you host on GitHub updates itself, then again when the site is back.

See how it works
WeeklyAI

Email a weekly changelog from merged pull requests

Every Friday you get a customer-friendly changelog written from the week's merged pull requests, with any risky changes flagged for a second look.

See how it works
The moment it happensAI

Label new GitHub issues and email me about bugs

New GitHub issues are labelled by type automatically, and you get an email whenever one is a bug.

See how it works Your own logic

Any other automation you can describe in words

Your own rules, schedule and AI steps with GitHub and Gmail, plus any other app. Describe it and your assistant builds it.

See how to build your own

Build your own

Build any GitHub and Gmail automation you can describe

The ideas above are ready-made starting points, not a fixed list. Describe what should happen between GitHub and Gmail in your own words, with your conditions, other apps or an AI step, and your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

For example, ask your assistant

Every Friday, email me a summary of pull requests merged this week in our three repos, grouped by author, with AI-written one-line descriptions.

When an email with "bug" in the subject arrives, have AI decide if it is a real bug report; if so, open a GitHub issue unless one with a similar title is already open.

Use cases

Why people connect GitHub and Gmail

How the two apps work together

  • GitHub sends events such as new issues, pull requests and releases to a ClickRuntime trigger link through its webhooks.
  • The script formats the event and sends an email from your Gmail account, or files a GitHub issue from an email it finds.
  • For the email side, the automation checks Gmail for new messages matching a label or search every few minutes.

  • Release notes emailed to customers

    Product managers send a short email to a customer list when a GitHub release is published. The email lists merged pull requests by label, such as feature and fix, in plain language.

  • Customer bug reports become GitHub issues

    Small engineering teams that take bug reports by email turn them into GitHub issues with the sender, subject and steps in the issue body. The reporter gets a reply with the issue link once it is filed.

  • Review reminders for stale pull requests

    Engineering leads email each reviewer a list of pull requests waiting on them for more than two days. The email links each PR and shows its age and size.

  • Security advisory alerts by email

    Maintainers get an email when Dependabot opens a security alert on a repository. The email names the package, severity and affected repository so it can be fixed the same day.

More apps

GitHub, Gmail and other apps in one automation

An automation isn't limited to two apps. Add the next step in another app and it runs as part of the same automation.

Release email to customers and a Slack post

When a GitHub release is published in our main repo, email the release notes to the list in my Gmail drafts and post a short version in #product.

Log emailed bug reports in a sheet and GitHub

When an email arrives with the label bug-report, open a GitHub issue and add a row to my Bugs sheet with the sender, subject and issue link.

Sentry errors to GitHub issues with email summary

Create a GitHub issue for each new Sentry error in production and email me a daily summary of the issues opened.

Setup

Connect GitHub and Gmail once

Every idea on this page uses the same two connections, so you set them up once. If one is missing, your assistant tells you and links to the right place.

GitHub

Developer / Source control

  1. In GitHub, open your profile picture, then Settings, Developer settings, Personal access tokens, Fine-grained tokens, and choose Generate new token.
  2. Give it a name and an expiration, and choose the resource owner (you or your organization).
  3. Under repository access, pick only the repos the automation needs, then set the minimum permissions, such as Issues, Pull requests or Contents.
  4. Generate the token and copy it.
  5. In the ClickRuntime dashboard, open Connections & secrets and save the token as a secret for GitHub.

Gmail

Email

  1. At console.cloud.google.com, create a project and enable the Gmail API under APIs & Services → Library.
  2. Set up the OAuth consent screen. On Google Workspace choose Internal. On a personal Gmail account choose External, then under Audience click Publish app so it is In production, not Testing.
  3. Under Data Access, add the scopes you need, such as https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.modify, or gmail.send if you only want to send.
  4. Under Clients, create an OAuth client of type Web application with the redirect URI https://clickruntime.com/oauth/callback.
  5. In the ClickRuntime dashboard, open Connections, choose Gmail and enter the client ID and secret. On a personal account Google shows an unverified-app screen: click Advanced, then go to your app.

FAQ

Questions about connecting GitHub and Gmail

Which inbox do the emails go to?
Alerts and drafts go to the email address on your ClickRuntime account. Automations that read mail, such as job failure reports, use the Gmail account you connect.
Can it send a changelog to customers?
Yes. It can send from your connected Gmail to a list or group address. Start by sending to yourself so you can check the wording.
Does it need access to my whole GitHub account?
No. Connect GitHub with access only to the repositories each automation uses, and with read access where it does not need to write.
Will my code be sent to AI?
Only titles, descriptions and short summaries of changes for the automations that use AI. Full source files are never sent.
Can it react to GitHub events right away?
Yes. GitHub webhooks can send events to a ClickRuntime trigger link, so the script runs as soon as the event arrives. Gmail is checked on a schedule, every 5 minutes or slower.
Can I limit it to certain repositories or labels?
Yes. The script can check the repository, label, branch or author of each event and skip the ones you do not want.
Does it work with GitHub organizations?
Yes, as long as your GitHub connection has access to the organization's repositories. Some organizations require an owner to approve third-party access first.

Related pages

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