GitHub Issues API Docs

Portfolio guides

Errors and Troubleshooting

Task-focused guides that complement the OpenAPI reference docs (Redoc).

Errors and Troubleshooting

Audience: Developers integrating with the GitHub Issues REST API (portfolio subset)

Scope: Troubleshooting guidance for common failure modes observed in the tested scope. All examples are backed by saved evidence artifacts.

Quick diagnosis table

Symptom Likely cause What to do Evidence
401 Unauthorized Missing or invalid Authorization header Add Authorization: Bearer <token> TEST-037A...401...json
404 Not Found Wrong owner/repo, or you lack access to a private repo Verify spelling and access (environment-dependent)
422 Unprocessable Entity Validation error in request body Fix required fields and payload format TEST-037...422...json

401 example: create issue without authentication

Observed response

  • Status: 401 Unauthorized
  • Message indicates authentication is required

Evidence:

  • evidence/raw/TEST-037A_POST_repos_owner_repo_issues_401_20251220_0346ET.json

Fix

  • Include Authorization: Bearer <token> and ensure the token has access to the repo.

422 example: missing title when creating an issue

Observed response

  • Status: 422 Unprocessable Entity
  • Message indicates the title field was not supplied

Evidence:

  • evidence/raw/TEST-037_POST_repos_owner_repo_issues_422_20251220_0341ET.json

Fix

  • Include a non-empty title field in the JSON body.

Minimal example:

{"title":"Required title","body":"Optional body"}

When to use the evidence artifacts

If you’re debugging a mismatch between expected and observed behavior, compare:

  • The request parameters you sent
  • The saved evidence artifact for the corresponding test
  • The OpenAPI description (which may include “Verified in: Test #…” notes)
Generated from guides/ into docs\guides/.