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Help Docs

Overview

The help_docs tool can answer a free-text question based on a git documentation folder.

It can be invoked manually by commenting on any PR or Issue: 

/help_docs "..."
Or configured to be triggered automatically when a new issue is opened.

The tool assumes by default that the documentation is located in the root of the repository, at /docs folder. However, this can be customized by setting the docs_path configuration option:

[pr_help_docs]
repo_url = ""                 # The repository to use as context
docs_path = "docs"            # The documentation folder
repo_default_branch = "main"  # The branch to use in case repo_url overwritten

See more configuration options in the Configuration options section.

Example usage

Asking a question about another repository

help_docs on the documentation of another repository

Response:

help_docs response

Run automatically when a new issue is opened

You can configure PR-Agent to run help_docs automatically on any newly created issue. This can be useful, for example, for providing immediate feedback to users who open issues with questions on open-source projects with extensive documentation.

Here's how:

1) Follow the steps depicted under Run as a Github Action to create a new workflow, such as:.github/workflows/help_docs.yml:

2) Edit your yaml file to the following:

name: Run pr agent on every opened issue, respond to user comments on an issue

#When the action is triggered
on:
  issues:
    types: [opened] #New issue

# Read env. variables
env:
  GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
  GITHUB_API_URL: ${{ github.api_url }}
  GIT_REPO_URL: ${{ github.event.repository.clone_url }}
  ISSUE_URL: ${{ github.event.issue.html_url || github.event.comment.html_url }}
  ISSUE_BODY: ${{ github.event.issue.body || github.event.comment.body }}
  OPENAI_KEY: ${{ secrets.OPENAI_KEY }}

# The actual set of actions
jobs:
  issue_agent:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: ${{ github.event.sender.type != 'Bot' }} #Do not respond to bots

    # Set required permissions
    permissions:
      contents: read    # For reading repository contents
      issues: write     # For commenting on issues

    steps:
      - name: Run PR Agent on Issues
        if: ${{ env.ISSUE_URL != '' }}
        uses: docker://codiumai/pr-agent:latest
        with:
          entrypoint: /bin/bash #Replace invoking cli.py directly with a shell
          args: |
            -c "cd /app && \
            echo 'Running Issue Agent action step on ISSUE_URL=$ISSUE_URL' && \
            export config__git_provider='github' && \
            export github__user_token=$GITHUB_TOKEN && \            
            export github__base_url=$GITHUB_API_URL && \
            export openai__key=$OPENAI_KEY && \
            python -m pr_agent.cli --issue_url=$ISSUE_URL --pr_help_docs.repo_url="..." --pr_help_docs.docs_path="..." --pr_help_docs.openai_key=$OPENAI_KEY && \help_docs \"$ISSUE_BODY\""

3) Following completion of the remaining steps (such as adding secrets and relevant configurations, such as repo_url and docs_path) merge this change to your main branch. When a new issue is opened, you should see a comment from github-actions bot with an auto response, assuming the question is related to the documentation of the repository.

Configuration options

Under the section pr_help_docs, the configuration file contains options to customize the 'help docs' tool:

  • repo_url: If not overwritten, will use the repo from where the context came from (issue or PR), otherwise - use the given repo as context.
  • repo_default_branch: The branch to use in case repo_url overwritten, otherwise - has no effect.
  • docs_path: Relative path from root of repository (either the one this PR has been issued for, or above repo url).
  • exclude_root_readme: Whether or not to exclude the root README file for querying the model.
  • supported_doc_exts : Which file extensions should be included for the purpose of querying the model.
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