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BUG: gh pr list and issue list --label uses OR logic instead of AND logic #419

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#3295
Closed
BUG: gh pr list and issue list --label uses OR logic instead of AND logic#419
#3295
Labels
bugSomething isn't workingpriority-2Affects more than a few users but doesn't prevent core functions

Description

@dterhorst-zz
dterhorst-zz
opened on Feb 13, 2020

Describe the bug

  1. gh pr list --label appears to be using OR logic instead of AND logic
  2. gh pr list --label sometimes contains duplicates.

To show why this is a problem, imagine your PRs have the following labels:

  • in progress, ready for review, and reviewed
  • team a, team b, and team c.

Now let's say you want to find all of the PRs that are ready for review from team b.

So it makes sense that you try to search for --label "ready for review,team b". However, instead of getting a list of every PR that is both "ready for review" and "team b," you get:

  • Every PR labeled "ready for review," even if it is not from "team b."
  • Every PR labeled "team b," even if it is not "ready for review."

These results are useless from the perspective of someone who wants to review PRs from team b that are ready for review.

$ gh --version
gh version 0.5.4 (2020-02-04)
https://github.com/cli/cli/releases/tag/v0.5.4

Steps to reproduce the behavior

  1. Create a PR named "Example A" with labels test-a and test-c
  2. Create a PR named "Example B" with labels test-b and test-c
  3. Run gh pr list -l test-a,test-c

Expected vs actual behavior

Expected:

Pull requests for ...

#17874  Example A  example-a

Actual:

Pull requests for ...

#17875  Example B  example-b
#17874  Example A  example-a
#17874  Example A  example-a

Broken expectations:

  • I expected "Example B" to not appear at all, because it does not have the test-a label and therefore doesn't satisfy the given query.
  • I expected "Example A" to appear only once, because there is no point in having duplicates in this list.

Possible solutions

At minimum, use AND by default.

Ideally, support full boolean logic:

gh pr list -l "team a AND (ready for review OR NOT in progress)"

Logs

$ gh pr list -l test-a

Pull requests for ...

#17874  Example A  example-a

$ gh pr list -l test-b

Pull requests for ...

#17875  Example B  example-b

$ gh pr list -l test-c

Pull requests for ...

#17875  Example B  example-b
#17874  Example A  example-a

$ gh pr list -l test-a,test-c

Pull requests for ...

#17875  Example B  example-b
#17874  Example A  example-a
#17874  Example A  example-a

Activity

  1. billygriffin commented on Feb 14, 2020

    @billygriffin
    billygriffin
    on Feb 14, 2020
    Contributor

    Thanks for the issue! Just want to note that this is also relevant for issues. We're going to discuss this and determine a way forward.

  2. billygriffin
    added
    issue
    needs-designAn engineering task needs design to proceed
    pull request
    on Feb 14, 2020
  3. billygriffin
    changed the title [-]BUG: gh pr list --label uses OR logic instead of AND logic[/-] [+]BUG: gh pr list and issue list --label uses OR logic instead of AND logic[/+] on Feb 14, 2020
  4. billygriffin
    added
    bugSomething isn't working
    and removed
    needs-designAn engineering task needs design to proceed
    on Feb 14, 2020

  5. billygriffin commented on Feb 14, 2020

    @billygriffin
    billygriffin
    on Feb 14, 2020
    Contributor

    After a discussion, we agree and think that the best way forward here for now is to do what @dterhorst describes above, mirroring how github.com filters when there are multiple labels specified.

    Proposed solution: If you have multiple labels specified, the list should only show those issues or PRs that match all of the specified labels, not any.

    While we're also attracted to the idea of full boolean logic, we're going to punt on that for now until we get more signal that that's something a lot of people are going to want to use.

    Note: We may be limited by what we get from the API to use AND logic instead of the existing OR logic, so we're discussing ways forward.

  6. billygriffin
    added
    priority-2Affects more than a few users but doesn't prevent core functions
    on Feb 14, 2020

  7. coot commented on Jul 6, 2020

    @coot
    coot
    on Jul 6, 2020

    Is there any progress on this, the current behaviour is quite annoying and limiting.

  8. mislav commented on Jul 6, 2020

    @mislav
    mislav
    on Jul 6, 2020
    Contributor

    @coot We are waiting on the corresponding GraphQL APIs to be finalized on the platform side.

  9. coot commented on Jul 6, 2020

    @coot
    coot
    on Jul 6, 2020

    @mislav thanks for letting me/us know

  10. vilmibm
    removed
    issue
    pull request
    on Sep 29, 2020

  11. matschaffer commented on Oct 14, 2020

    @matschaffer
    matschaffer
    on Oct 14, 2020
    Contributor

    Looks like about a quarter since the last update. Was hoping to use hub in one less place but this means I'll be keeping it around for the time being.

    Any news on the GraphQL APIs?

  12. mislav commented on Oct 14, 2020

    @mislav
    mislav
    on Oct 14, 2020
    Contributor

    @matschaffer Thanks for checking in! We got access to some APIs for this that are under preview (not available to the general public) but we will likely need a few more weeks to ship something built on top of that. 🙇

  13. matschaffer commented on Oct 14, 2020

    @matschaffer
    matschaffer
    on Oct 14, 2020
    Contributor

    Thanks for the update!

  14. andysanders commented on Feb 17, 2021

    @andysanders
    andysanders
    on Feb 17, 2021

    Hey Guys.

    What's the latest on this one? It would be super helpful for all sorts of planning exercises.
    Our use case is similar to the original enquirer. But ticket type rather than team.
    e.g. Priority: High, Medium, Low
    Type: Bug, Enhancement, Help

    I have a team focused on all High Priority Bugs. So being able to search for issues with labels 'Bug' AND 'High Priority' would be super helpful.

    Thank you.

  15. mislav commented on Mar 9, 2021

    @mislav
    mislav
    on Mar 9, 2021
    Contributor

    @andysanders No updates yet. We will likely have to switch to the Search API internally to get AND labels.

    In the meantime, you can query the Search API directly:

    gh api -X GET search/issues \
  -F q='repo::owner/:repo is:issue is:open label:"bug" label:"high priority"' \
  --jq '.items[] | [.number,.title] | @tsv'
  16. mislav
    closed this as completedin #3295on Mar 30, 2021
  17. Stonre
    added a commit that references this issue on Jul 21, 2025

    chore!: set Agent property load_tools_from_directory to default to Fa…

    48bcd5b
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