Can't delete or query packages with forward slash in their names

Describe the bug

Steps to reproduce the behavior

List packages:

gh api /users/skarlso/packages\?package_type=container --jq '.[].name'
...
ocm/v0.0.1/component-descriptors/github.com/skarlso/ocm-test
ocm/v0.0.2/component-descriptors/github.com/skarlso/ocm-workflow-class
ocm-workflow-class/v0.0.1
ocm/v0.0.1/component-descriptors/github.com/skarlso/ocm-workflow-class
ocm-destination/v0.0.1/component-descriptors/github.com/skarlso/ocm-workflow-class
ocm/component-descriptors/github.com/skarlso/ocm-workflow-class
ocm-destination/component-descriptors/github.com/skarlso/ocm-workflow-class
ocm-replication-test/component-descriptors/github.com/skarlso/ocm-replication-test
ocm-replication-test-example/v0.0.1
ocm-replication/component-descriptors/github.com/skarlso/ocm-replication
ocm-destination/skarlso/ocm-replication-test-example/v0.0.1
ocm-destination/component-descriptors/github.com/skarlso/ocm-replication
ocm-delivery/weaveworksdemos/carts
ocm-delivery/gardener-project/test/jensh007/mongo
ocm-delivery/component-descriptors/github.com/weaveworks/carts
ocm-delivery/weaveworksdemos/catalogue
ocm-delivery/weaveworksdemos/catalogue-db
ocm-delivery/component-descriptors/github.com/weaveworks/catalogue
ocm-delivery/weaveworksdemos/front-end
ocm-delivery/component-descriptors/github.com/weaveworks/front-end
ocm-delivery/weaveworksdemos/orders
ocm-delivery/component-descriptors/github.com/weaveworks/orders
ocm-delivery/weaveworksdemos/payment
ocm-delivery/component-descriptors/github.com/weaveworks/payment
ocm-delivery/weaveworksdemos/queue-master
ocm-delivery/library/rabbitmq
ocm-delivery/kbudde/rabbitmq-exporter
ocm-delivery/library/redis
ocm-delivery/component-descriptors/github.com/weaveworks/queue-master
ocm-delivery/weaveworksdemos/shipping

Query:

gh api -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" /users/skarlso/packages/container/ocm-delivery/weaveworksdemos/shipping
...
gh: Not Found (HTTP 404)
{
  "message": "Not Found",
  "documentation_url": "https://docs.github.com/rest",
  "status": "404"
}


## Or

gh api \
  -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" \
  -H "X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2022-11-28" \
  /user/packages/container/ocm-delivery/weaveworksdemos/shipping


gh: Not Found (HTTP 404)
{
  "message": "Not Found",
  "documentation_url": "https://docs.github.com/rest",
  "status": "404"
}

Expected vs actual behavior

A clear and concise description of what you expected to happen and what actually happened.

Logs

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

For the record, deleting and retrieving a package that doesn't have a slash in its name, does work:

gh api /user/packages/container/cert-manager-webhook

{
  "id": 5684160,
  "name": "cert-manager-webhook",
  "package_type": "container",
  "owner": {
    "login": "Skarlso",
    "id": 182850,
    "node_id": "MDQ6VXNlcjE4Mjg1MA==",
    "avatar_url": "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/182850?v=4",
    "gravatar_id": "",
    "url": "https://api.github.com/users/Skarlso",
    "html_url": "https://github.com/Skarlso",
    "followers_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Skarlso/followers",
    "following_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Skarlso/following{/other_user}",
    "gists_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Skarlso/gists{/gist_id}",
    "starred_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Skarlso/starred{/owner}{/repo}",
    "subscriptions_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Skarlso/subscriptions",
    "organizations_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Skarlso/orgs",
    "repos_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Skarlso/repos",
    "events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Skarlso/events{/privacy}",
    "received_events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/Skarlso/received_events",
    "type": "User",
    "user_view_type": "public",
    "site_admin": false
  },
  "version_count": 6,
  "visibility": "public",
  "url": "https://api.github.com/users/Skarlso/packages/container/cert-manager-webhook",
  "created_at": "2023-10-03T15:10:54Z",
  "updated_at": "2023-10-03T15:28:33Z",
  "html_url": "https://github.com/users/Skarlso/packages/container/package/cert-manager-webhook"
}

The name has to be URL encoded with %2F.

@Skarlso

@Skarlso,

Looking at this it sort of seems like we should be URL encoding this on the client? What you've discovered seems like a pretty terrible experience. I suspect it hasn't come up before just because for the most part names don't have these characters.

What do you think about reopening this to get a better experience here?

Yeah sure. Let's do that. It would be super nice indeed. 😊

Acceptance Criteria

When I target a resource using gh api that has characters that have special meaning and should be percent-encoded
Then the request is made successfully

Thank you for doing this! :) <3

@Skarlso

Sorry @Skarlso, I've reverted the PR that fixed this because it caused some other issues. I'm reopening it so another attempt can be made, but it's likely there will be a release today that breaks you again: #10630

No worries. :D Thank you for letting me know. :)

@Skarlso

@Skarlso : Nice to meet you! I'd like to ask you a few questions to figure out how we can help you in light of all of this. 🙇

Questions

What operating systems were you using gh for working with these endpoints?
What other alternatives to encoding URLs did you explore?
Are there any concerns using a specialized tool for encoding and decoding?

Thoughts

This need completely makes sense as most programming languages provide libraries to help developers address this issue natively, however there are few standalone Linux/Windows/Mac utilities for shell and scripting use:

However, I genuinely believe this problem needs a different approach:

this is a general HTTP request need, not just GitHub APIs
I don't know where the Unix principle line gets drawn here in terms of responsibility
I don't know how intelligent gh should be in this situation

Seeing several homegrown tools on GitHub that people have put together to call Go url.PathEscape(), perhaps we have a standalone cli tool that does something similar if not a standalone gh command. 🤔

@andyfeller

@andyfeller Thank you very much! It's really not that big of a problem :) I just adjusted my own pathing and that's it. :)

osx
yes, a simple bash script where I escape what I do "by hand"

    if [[ $found -eq 1 ]]; then
      name=${1//\//%2F}
      echo "deleting package with name: $name"
      gh api -X DELETE "/user/packages/container/$name" --silent
    fi

I'd like to limit the number of tools I use to a bare minimum

Something else to contribute here - the %2F fix works for getting/deleting specific packages. However, packages with slashes in the name also are not appearing in list responses, and this has no way to fix locally. e.g. if we do gh api orgs/<org name>/packages?package_type=container, packages with a slash in the name are not returned.

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Can't delete or query packages with forward slash in their names #9798

Describe the bug

Steps to reproduce the behavior

Expected vs actual behavior

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Can't delete or query packages with forward slash in their names #9798

Description

Describe the bug

Steps to reproduce the behavior

Expected vs actual behavior

Logs

Activity

Skarlso commented on Oct 21, 2024

Skarlso commented on Oct 22, 2024

williammartin commented on Oct 23, 2024

Skarlso commented on Oct 23, 2024

williammartin commented on Oct 23, 2024

Acceptance Criteria

Skarlso commented on Feb 27, 2025

williammartin commented on Mar 18, 2025

Skarlso commented on Mar 18, 2025

andyfeller commented on Mar 18, 2025

Questions

Thoughts

Skarlso commented on Mar 18, 2025

AdamuKaapan commented on Apr 24, 2026

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