gh repo rename myorg/newname results in myorg/myorg-newname

Describe the bug

gh version 2.63.0 (2024-11-27)
https://github.com/cli/cli/releases/tag/v2.63.0

I renamed my repo using gh repo rename polyseam/frappe-containers, this resulted in the preview being correct:

? Rename polyseam/containers to polyseam/frappe-containers? Yes

but the result being wrong:

✓ Renamed repository polyseam/polyseam-frappe-containers

Steps to reproduce the behavior

gh repo create org/foo-repo --private --clone
cd foo-repo
gh repo rename org/bar-repo
note the confirm prompt is correct
enter Yes
note the incorrect result: "✓ Renamed repository org/org-bar-repo"

Expected vs actual behavior

The resulting repo name should not be prefixed with orgname- and should instead match the preview in step 4.

Logs

Paste the activity from your command line. Redact if needed.

Interesting! Thanks for the bug report. What's happening here is that the CLI is echoing your argument (which looks correct - but isn't, because repo rename doesn't expect an org in the name) but the API is converting the / to a -. Here's the API request body for a command I ran:

➜  test-repo git:(main) GH_DEBUG=api gh repo rename williammartin/test-repo-rename
[git remote -v]
[git config --get-regexp ^remote\..*\.gh-resolved$]
? Rename williammartin-test-org/test-repo to williammartin/test-repo-rename? Yes
* Request at 2024-12-07 08:54:00.151523 +0100 CET m=+2.598041542
* Request to https://api.github.com/repos/williammartin-test-org/test-repo
> PATCH /repos/williammartin-test-org/test-repo HTTP/1.1
> Host: api.github.com
> Accept: application/vnd.github.merge-info-preview+json, application/vnd.github.nebula-preview
> Authorization: token ████████████████████
> Content-Length: 42
> Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
> Time-Zone: Europe/Amsterdam
> User-Agent: GitHub CLI 2.63.0

{
  "name": "williammartin/test-repo-rename"
}

< HTTP/2.0 200 OK
< Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
< Access-Control-Expose-Headers: ETag, Link, Location, Retry-After, X-GitHub-OTP, X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Used, X-RateLimit-Resource, X-RateLimit-Reset, X-OAuth-Scopes, X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes, X-Poll-Interval, X-GitHub-Media-Type, X-GitHub-SSO, X-GitHub-Request-Id, Deprecation, Sunset
< Cache-Control: private, max-age=60, s-maxage=60
< Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'none'
< Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
< Date: Sat, 07 Dec 2024 07:54:00 GMT
< Etag: W/"a11a2851b506b1ab3658893d33c511135bf869881dcfda8ede6b83fc7f0c9e0a"
< Referrer-Policy: origin-when-cross-origin, strict-origin-when-cross-origin
< Server: github.com
< Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubdomains; preload
< Vary: Accept, Authorization, Cookie, X-GitHub-OTP,Accept-Encoding, Accept, X-Requested-With
< X-Accepted-Oauth-Scopes:
< X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
< X-Frame-Options: deny
< X-Github-Api-Version-Selected: 2022-11-28
< X-Github-Media-Type: github.v3; param=merge-info-preview.nebula-preview; format=json
< X-Github-Request-Id: CA50:DCDAE:1C4A42F:1D1768C:6753FF18
< X-Oauth-Client-Id: 178c6fc778ccc68e1d6a
< X-Oauth-Scopes: codespace, delete_repo, gist, read:org, repo, workflow
< X-Ratelimit-Limit: 15000
< X-Ratelimit-Remaining: 14972
< X-Ratelimit-Reset: 1733559751
< X-Ratelimit-Resource: core
< X-Ratelimit-Used: 28
< X-Xss-Protection: 0

{
  "id": 637760824,
  "node_id": "R_kgDOJgN1OA",
  "name": "williammartin-test-repo-rename",
  "full_name": "williammartin-test-org/williammartin-test-repo-rename",
...

What we should probably do here is 1. document this more clearly in the help text 2. error if there is a / in the name. We could check if the name matches the org and ignore it but I don't know if it's that much better than just failing and introduces a bit of not-very-high-value maintenance and UX debt.

Linking in a few related issues:

@williammartin

document this more clearly in the help text

@williammartin I think this help doc change is important since this seems to come up from time to time. I opened a PR for this - it also includes a proposal for a small change to the prompt: #10044

Interesting! Thanks for the bug report. What's happening here is that the CLI is echoing your argument (which looks correct - but isn't, because repo rename doesn't expect an org in the name) but the API is converting the / to a -. Here's the API request body for a command I ran:

What we should probably do here is 1. document this more clearly in the help text 2. error if there is a / in the name. We could check if the name matches the org and ignore it but I don't know if it's that much better than just failing and introduces a bit of not-very-high-value maintenance and UX debt.

I hesitate on the level of intelligence that gh should exhibit here since the GitHub API is already doing some. It doesn't appear we have any repository name validation in the code base even for repository creation outside of splitting on slashes:

cli/pkg/cmd/repo/create/create.go

Lines 914 to 963 in 46bba45

    
           func interactiveRepoNameAndOwner(client *http.Client, hostname string, prompter iprompter, defaultName string) (string, string, error) { 
        
           	name, err := prompter.Input("Repository name", defaultName) 
        
           	if err != nil { 
        
           		return "", "", err 
        
           	} 
        
           	name, owner, err := splitNameAndOwner(name) 
        
           	if err != nil { 
        
           		return "", "", err 
        
           	} 
        
           	if owner != "" { 
        
           		// User supplied an explicit owner prefix. 
        
           		return name, owner, nil 
        
           	} 
        
           	username, orgs, err := userAndOrgs(client, hostname) 
        
           	if err != nil { 
        
           		return "", "", err 
        
           	} 
        
           	if len(orgs) == 0 { 
        
           		// User doesn't belong to any orgs. 
        
           		// Leave the owner blank to indicate a personal repo. 
        
           		return name, "", nil 
        
           	} 
        
           	owners := append(orgs, username) 
        
           	sort.Strings(owners) 
        
           	selected, err := prompter.Select("Repository owner", username, owners) 
        
           	if err != nil { 
        
           		return "", "", err 
        
           	} 
        
           	owner = owners[selected] 
        
           	if owner == username { 
        
           		// Leave the owner blank to indicate a personal repo. 
        
           		return name, "", nil 
        
           	} 
        
           	return name, owner, nil 
        
           } 
        
           func splitNameAndOwner(name string) (string, string, error) { 
        
           	if !strings.Contains(name, "/") { 
        
           		return name, "", nil 
        
           	} 
        
           	repo, err := ghrepo.FromFullName(name) 
        
           	if err != nil { 
        
           		return "", "", fmt.Errorf("argument error: %w", err) 
        
           	} 
        
           	return repo.RepoName(), repo.RepoOwner(), nil 
        
           }

cli/internal/ghrepo/repo.go

Lines 44 to 58 in 46bba45

    
           // FromFullName extracts the GitHub repository information from the following 
        
           // formats: "OWNER/REPO", "HOST/OWNER/REPO", and a full URL. 
        
           func FromFullName(nwo string) (Interface, error) { 
        
           	return FromFullNameWithHost(nwo, defaultHost()) 
        
           } 
        
           // FromFullNameWithHost is like FromFullName that defaults to a specific host for values that don't 
        
           // explicitly include a hostname. 
        
           func FromFullNameWithHost(nwo, fallbackHost string) (Interface, error) { 
        
           	repo, err := repository.ParseWithHost(nwo, fallbackHost) 
        
           	if err != nil { 
        
           		return nil, err 
        
           	} 
        
           	return NewWithHost(repo.Owner, repo.Name, repo.Host), nil 
        
           }

Since the underlying cli/go-gh logic assumes the slashes are for [HOST/]OWNER/REPO, I think the safest things to do are:

Error if repository name includes /
Update documentation that repositories are kept within owning org/user account

I'd definitely agree that it feels like the right way forward to error if a repository name is entered beginning with /.

Acceptance Criteria

Given I have a repo org/repo
When I run gh repo -R org/repo rename org/repo-rename
Then the CLI exits 1
And Then I see an informative error message on stderr that the renamed repository should not contain forward slashes, and a hint that if the user is trying to move the repository between organisations they need to read the docs, with a link.

Duplicate of #10466

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`gh repo rename myorg/newname` results in `myorg/myorg-newname` #10034

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	func interactiveRepoNameAndOwner(client *http.Client, hostname string, prompter iprompter, defaultName string) (string, string, error) {
	name, err := prompter.Input("Repository name", defaultName)
	if err != nil {
	return "", "", err
	}

	name, owner, err := splitNameAndOwner(name)
	if err != nil {
	return "", "", err
	}
	if owner != "" {
	// User supplied an explicit owner prefix.
	return name, owner, nil
	}

	username, orgs, err := userAndOrgs(client, hostname)
	if err != nil {
	return "", "", err
	}
	if len(orgs) == 0 {
	// User doesn't belong to any orgs.
	// Leave the owner blank to indicate a personal repo.
	return name, "", nil
	}

	owners := append(orgs, username)
	sort.Strings(owners)
	selected, err := prompter.Select("Repository owner", username, owners)
	if err != nil {
	return "", "", err
	}

	owner = owners[selected]
	if owner == username {
	// Leave the owner blank to indicate a personal repo.
	return name, "", nil
	}
	return name, owner, nil
	}

	func splitNameAndOwner(name string) (string, string, error) {
	if !strings.Contains(name, "/") {
	return name, "", nil
	}
	repo, err := ghrepo.FromFullName(name)
	if err != nil {
	return "", "", fmt.Errorf("argument error: %w", err)
	}
	return repo.RepoName(), repo.RepoOwner(), nil
	}

	// FromFullName extracts the GitHub repository information from the following
	// formats: "OWNER/REPO", "HOST/OWNER/REPO", and a full URL.
	func FromFullName(nwo string) (Interface, error) {
	return FromFullNameWithHost(nwo, defaultHost())
	}

	// FromFullNameWithHost is like FromFullName that defaults to a specific host for values that don't
	// explicitly include a hostname.
	func FromFullNameWithHost(nwo, fallbackHost string) (Interface, error) {
	repo, err := repository.ParseWithHost(nwo, fallbackHost)
	if err != nil {
	return nil, err
	}
	return NewWithHost(repo.Owner, repo.Name, repo.Host), nil
	}

gh repo rename myorg/newname results in myorg/myorg-newname #10034

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Describe the bug

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williammartin commented on Dec 7, 2024

BagToad commented on Dec 8, 2024

BagToad commented on Dec 8, 2024

andyfeller commented on Dec 9, 2024

eviltimrogers commented on Jan 28, 2025

williammartin commented on Feb 3, 2025

Acceptance Criteria

Randy88-art commented on Aug 17, 2025

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`gh repo rename myorg/newname` results in `myorg/myorg-newname` #10034