Agent Tools

The GitHub agent provides 6 tools for searching and navigating code:

Code Search & Reading (Sourcebot)

Tool	Description	Key Parameters
searchCode	Regex-based code search across indexed repositories. Supports Zoekt file: and -file: syntax for path filtering.	query, repo_filter, language_filter, file_filter, file_exclude, limit
readFiles	Read full file contents with line numbers from indexed repositories.	paths, repository
findSymbolDefinitions	Find where a symbol (function, class, variable) is defined using language-specific patterns.	symbol, language, repository
findSymbolReferences	Find all references to a symbol across the codebase using word-boundary matching.	symbol, language, repository

Repository Discovery (Sourcebot)

Tool	Description	Key Parameters
searchRepos	Fuzzy search for repository names.	query, limit
listAllRepos	List all indexed repositories.	None

Manual Override

Prefix your query with /github to route directly to the GitHub agent, bypassing the workflow classification:

/github Where is the authentication middleware defined?

Agentic Loop with Step Limiting

The GitHub agent operates as an autonomous agentic loop with built-in limits to prevent infinite tool calls:

Setting	Default	Description
github_max_steps	12	Maximum tool calls per agent invocation
github_warning_step_ratio	0.8	Warn the agent when 80% of steps are used
github_temperature	0.3	LLM temperature for focused, deterministic responses
github_timeout_seconds	60	Per-API-call timeout; overall agent execution timeout is 120s

Citation System

The agent uses inline citations in the format @file:{repo::path:startLine-endLine}. These are automatically converted to clickable GitHub URLs in a Sources section appended to every response:

Sources:
- https://github.com/org/repo/blob/HEAD/src/auth/middleware.py#L42-L58
- https://github.com/org/repo/blob/HEAD/src/utils/helpers.py#L10-L25

Organization Scoping

All searches are automatically scoped to the configured github_org. Repo-level exclusions are applied both in search queries and as post-fetch filters.

Rate Limiting

The integration uses three layers of rate limit protection:

Layer	Behavior
Proactive throttling	Tracks GitHub API x-ratelimit-remaining headers. Starts throttling when remaining requests fall below the buffer threshold (default: 100). Enforces minimum delay between search requests (default: 2 seconds).
Reactive backoff	On 429 or rate-limit 403 responses, applies exponential backoff with jitter (base 2s, max 60s). Respects Retry-After header. Up to 3 retry attempts.
Graceful degradation	If rate limits are exhausted, search tools return empty results instead of failing. The agent reports the limitation to the user.

Configurable Limits

All rate limit settings are configurable via the Admin UI and support hot-reload:

Setting	Default	Range	Description
github_default_max_results	20	1–100	Default max results per search
github_max_search_concurrent	2	1–10	Max concurrent search API requests
github_search_min_delay	2.0s	0–10s	Min delay between search requests
github_max_retries	3	0–10	Retry attempts on rate limit errors
github_retry_base_delay	2.0s	0–10s	Exponential backoff base
github_retry_max_delay	60s	10–300s	Maximum retry delay
github_core_buffer_threshold	100	10–1000	Throttle when remaining requests below this
github_search_cache_ttl	60s	0–3600s	Search result cache duration

API Endpoints

Endpoint	Method	Description
GET /api/connectors/github	GET	Get GitHub connector status and configuration
PATCH /api/connectors/github	PATCH	Enable/disable the GitHub connector (hot-reload)
GET /health	GET	System health check including GitHub connectivity