About searching for discussions
You can search for discussions globally across all of GitHub, or search for discussions within a particular organization or repository. For more information, see About searching on GitHub.
Tip
- This article contains links to example searches on the GitHub.com website, but you can use the same search filters in any GitHub platform. In the linked example searches, replace
github.comwith the hostname for your GitHub platform. - For a list of search syntaxes that you can add to any search qualifier to further improve your results, see Understanding the search syntax.
- Use quotations around multi-word search terms. For example, if you want to search for issues with the label "In progress," you'd search for
label:"in progress". Search is not case sensitive.
Search by the title, body, or comments
With the in qualifier you can restrict your search for discussions to the title, body, or comments. You can also combine qualifiers to search a combination of title, body, or comments. When you omit the in qualifier, GitHub searches the title, body, and comments.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
in:title | welcome in:title matches discussions with "welcome" in the title. |
in:body | onboard in:title,body matches discussions with "onboard" in the title or body. |
in:comments | thanks in:comments matches discussions with "thanks" in the comments for the discussion. |
Search within a user's or organization's repositories
To search discussions in all repositories owned by a certain user or organization, you can use the user or org qualifier. To search discussions in a specific repository, you can use the repo qualifier.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
user:USERNAME | user:octocat feedback matches discussions with the word "feedback" from repositories owned by @octocat. |
org:ORGNAME | org:github matches discussions in repositories owned by the GitHub organization. |
repo:USERNAME/REPOSITORY | repo:nodejs/node created:<2025-08-04 matches discussions from @nodejs' Node.js runtime project that were created before January 2021. |
Search by open or closed state
You can filter discussions based on whether they're open or closed using the is qualifier.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
is:open | performance is:open is:discussion matches open discussions with the word "performance." |
is:closed | android is:closed matches closed discussions with the word "android." |
Search based on whether a discussion was answered
You can search for a discussion that has been answered using the is qualifier.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
is:answered | performance is:answered is:discussion matches answered discussions with the word "performance." |
is:unanswered | android is:unanswered matches unanswered discussions with the word "android." |
Search based on whether a discussion is locked
You can search for a discussion that has been locked using the is qualifier. For more information, see Moderating discussions.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
is:locked | "code of conduct" is:locked is:discussion matches discussions with the words "code of conduct" that have been locked. |
is:unlocked | code of conduct is:unlocked is:discussion matches discussions with the words "code of conduct" that are unlocked. |
Filter by repository visibility
You can filter by the visibility of the repository containing the discussions using the is qualifier. For more information, see About repositories.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
is:public | is:public matches discussions in public repositories. |
is:private | is:private tiramisu matches discussions that contain the word "tiramisu" in private repositories you can access. |
Search by author
The author qualifier finds discussions created by a certain user.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
author:USERNAME | cool author:octocat matches discussions with the word "cool" that were created by @octocat. |
in:body author:USERNAME | bootstrap in:body author:octocat matches discussions created by @octocat that contain the word "bootstrap" in the body. |
Search by commenter
The commenter qualifier finds discussions that contain a comment from a certain user.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
commenter:USERNAME | github commenter:becca org:github matches discussions in repositories owned by GitHub, that contain the word "github," and have a comment by @becca. |
Search by user who has answered a discussion
The answered-by qualifier finds discussions where a certain user's comment was marked as an answer.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
answered-by:USERNAME | cool answered-by:octocat matches discussions with the word "cool" that were answered by @octocat. |
Search by a user that's involved in a discussion
You can use the involves qualifier to find discussions that involve a certain user. The qualifier returns discussions that were either created by a certain user, mention the user, or contain comments by the user. The involves qualifier is a logical OR between the author, mentions, and commenter qualifiers for a single user.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
involves:USERNAME | involves:becca involves:octocat matches discussions either @becca or @octocat are involved in. |
in:body involves:USERNAME | NOT free in:body involves:becca matches discussions @becca is involved in that do not contain the word "free" in the body. |
Search by number of comments
You can use the comments qualifier along with greater than, less than, and range qualifiers to search by the number of comments. For more information, see Understanding the search syntax.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
comments:n | comments:>100 matches discussions with more than 100 comments. |
comments:n | comments:500..1000 matches discussions with comments ranging from 500 to 1,000. |
Search by when a discussion was created or last updated
You can filter discussions based on times of creation, or when the discussion was last updated. For discussion creation, you can use the created qualifier; to find out when an discussion was last updated, use the updated qualifier.
Both qualifiers take a date as a parameter. Date formatting must follow the ISO8601 standard, which is YYYY-MM-DD (year-month-day). You can also add optional time information THH:MM:SS+00:00 after the date, to search by the hour, minute, and second. That's T, followed by HH:MM:SS (hour-minutes-seconds), and a UTC offset (+00:00).
When you search for a date, you can use greater than, less than, and range qualifiers to further filter results. For more information, see Understanding the search syntax.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
created:YYYY-MM-DD | created:>2025-08-04 matches discussions that were created after November 15, 2020. |
updated:YYYY-MM-DD | weird in:body updated:>=2025-08-04 matches discussions with the word "weird" in the body that were updated after December 2020. |
Search by category
You can filter discussions by specific discussions categories.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
category:CATEGORYNAME | category:Ideas matches discussions categories that match the name "Ideas". |
Search by label
You can filter discussions by specific labels that are applied to discussions.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
label: "LABEL NAME" | label:"Product Feedback" matches discussions that match the label "Product Feedback". |