#Watching your own GitHub repositories

GitHub sunset automatic watching of repositories and teams on 23rd May 2025. Existing subscriptions were kept, but every repository created since gets none. You are not notified of issues or pull requests on your own repositories unless you subscribe by hand. There is no setting to restore the old behaviour.

#Alias

gh alias set watch 'api -X PUT /repos/$1/subscription -F subscribed=true --silent'

Run it after creating a repository:

gh watch SamJUK/new-repo

Use -F rather than -f so subscribed is sent as a boolean.

#Find repositories you are not watching

comm -13 \
  <(gh api /user/subscriptions --paginate -q '.[].full_name' | sort) \
  <(gh repo list SamJUK --limit 300 --json nameWithOwner,isArchived \
      -q '.[] | select(.isArchived==false) | .nameWithOwner' | sort)

#Backfill

comm -13 \
  <(gh api /user/subscriptions --paginate -q '.[].full_name' | sort) \
  <(gh repo list SamJUK --limit 300 --json nameWithOwner,isArchived \
      -q '.[] | select(.isArchived==false) | .nameWithOwner' | sort) \
| while read -r repo; do gh watch "$repo" && echo "ok $repo"; done

Swap SamJUK for an organisation name to do the same across an org. Filter first if you only want part of it:

gh repo list Big-Eye-Deers --limit 300 --json nameWithOwner,isArchived \
  -q '.[] | select(.isArchived==false) | .nameWithOwner' | grep -E '/devops-'

#Caveats

The REST API only offers watch-all-activity or ignore. The “issues and pull requests only” custom watch is web UI only, so scripted subscriptions are all-activity. GitHub never notifies you about your own actions, so on solo repositories this is quieter than it sounds.

Watching alone does not send email. Check Settings, Notifications, Subscriptions, Watching has email enabled, otherwise everything lands in the web inbox only.