GitHub
Connect GitHub repositories to TraceX with the TraceX GitHub App to trace errors to code, find the change behind an incident, review pull requests and open fix pull requests.
TraceX connects to GitHub as a GitHub App. You choose exactly which repositories it can see. No personal access tokens are stored: TraceX uses short-lived installation tokens and reads code live when it needs it. Nothing is copied.
Why connect GitHub
Section titled “Why connect GitHub”An error message tells you what failed. The code tells you why. With your
repositories connected, TraceX can follow a stack trace to the exact function and
line, read the logic around it, and check which commit last touched it. That turns
“500 on /checkout” into “capture() sends dollars where the gateway expects cents,
changed in commit a41f9c2”.
GitHub is also how TraceX knows what shipped and when, from Deployments, Releases and merged pull requests. That’s what lets it rank the changes most likely to have caused an incident.
Before you start
Section titled “Before you start”You need permission to install GitHub Apps on the organization or account that owns the repositories. If you don’t have it, GitHub lets you send the install request to an owner.
Connect
Section titled “Connect”- In the dashboard, open Integrations → GitHub and click Connect.
- GitHub asks where to install the TraceX app. Choose your organization, then only select repositories (recommended) or all repositories. GitHub lists the permissions the app asks for on this screen.
- Back in TraceX, pick the repository and branch for the project. Add every repository that makes up the system, such as the API, the workers and the shared libraries, so TraceX can follow an issue across them.
What TraceX does with GitHub
Section titled “What TraceX does with GitHub”| Feature | What it uses |
|---|---|
| Read code to trace a failure to the file, function and line | Repository contents |
| Find the change behind an incident (how) | Deployments, Releases, commits and merged pull requests |
| Review pull requests (Pull request review) | Pull requests and review comments |
| Open fix pull requests when you ask (Fixes) | A new branch and a pull request; never a push to your main branch |
Example
Section titled “Example”Checkout returns 500 for some customers since this morning.
TraceX finds the exception in your logs or Sentry, opens payments/capture.py at the
line in the stack trace, sees the amount now comes from order.total instead of
order.total_cents, and finds that the change shipped in the 09:02 deploy in pull
request #1842. The report cites the file, the line and the pull request.
Troubleshooting
Section titled “Troubleshooting”| Problem | What to check |
|---|---|
| A repository doesn’t appear in TraceX | In GitHub, open Settings → Applications → TraceX → Configure and add the repository to the selected list. |
| No deploys are found for an incident | TraceX uses GitHub Deployments and Releases. Without them it falls back to commits merged in the hours before the incident, which is less precise. |
| The install needs an owner’s approval | GitHub sends the request to your organization’s owners. Once approved, return to Integrations → GitHub. |
Remove access
Section titled “Remove access”Uninstall the app or change its repositories in GitHub (Settings → Applications → TraceX), or disconnect the repository in TraceX. Access stops at once because TraceX only holds short-lived tokens.