Run Claude Code in GitHub Actions with gh-aw

Claude Code is Anthropic’s agentic coding interface for repository analysis and code changes. gh-aw runs Claude Code inside GitHub Actions from a Markdown workflow, adds GitHub event triggers, and routes write operations through validated safe outputs instead of giving the agent direct write access.

Setup

Set engine: claude in the workflow frontmatter and provide ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, or configure keyless authentication with Anthropic Workload Identity Federation. See Anthropic authentication for the supported options.

---
on:
  schedule: daily

permissions:
  contents: read
  issues: read
  pull-requests: read

engine: claude

safe-outputs:
  create-issue:
    title-prefix: "[status] "
    labels: [report]
    close-older-issues: true
---

# Daily Repository Status

Analyze the repository and create a concise daily status report covering:
- Open issues and their priority
- Recent PR activity
- Upcoming work items

Guided workflow authoring with Claude Code

Claude Code users can initialize the repository and author agentic workflows with interactive guidance — no Copilot subscription required.

Initialize for Claude

Run gh aw init --engine claude to configure the repository. The --engine claude flag skips Copilot-specific files (MCP server configuration, Copilot dispatcher skill) and only writes the files useful for any engine: .gitattributes, VS Code settings, and the custom agent file.

gh aw init --engine claude

Create a workflow

Start Claude Code in your repository and run:

Create a workflow for GitHub Agentic Workflows using https://raw.githubusercontent.com/github/gh-aw/main/create.md

The purpose of the workflow is <describe your automation goal here>.

The agent fetches create.md, installs the gh aw CLI if needed, guides you through trigger selection, tools, safe outputs, and permissions, then generates .github/workflows/<name>.md and compiles it to a .lock.yml.

After the files are committed, set engine: claude in your workflow’s frontmatter (if not already set) and add your ANTHROPIC_API_KEY as a repository secret.

When to choose gh-aw vs. anthropics/claude-code-action

Choose gh-aw when the workflow should be defined in Markdown, run behind gh-aw sandboxing, switch engines without rewriting the workflow, or use safe outputs for validated GitHub writes. Choose anthropics/claude-code-action when the main goal is native Claude-driven PR assistance around comment and mention workflows.