awesome-copilot/extensions/pr-artifact-explorer/README.md

Artifact Explorer

GitHub, the missing parts: GitHub Actions makes artifacts easy to produce, but pull-request reviewers still have to download opaque ZIP files and inspect them out of context. Artifact Explorer turns those artifacts into a fast, GitHub-native, navigable experience inside Copilot.

Artifact Explorer is a community-built Copilot canvas extension with the internal extension ID pr-artifact-explorer. It is not an official GitHub product or endorsed feature.

What it does

• Navigates repositories, pull requests, artifacts, and files with persistent breadcrumbs.
• Loads pull requests progressively, caches result pages, and supports query filters for fast review.
• Bounds artifact discovery to the newest 30 workflow runs per head commit and reports when older runs are omitted.
• Downloads an artifact once, indexes its ZIP, and streams entries directly from the archive without extracting them to disk.
• Previews root-level static sites in a sandboxed loopback frame when the artifact contains index.html.
• Plays asciinema terminal recordings and renders structured TRX test reports.
• Syntax-highlights JSON and XML, previews images and PDFs, renders text with safe escaping, and identifies binary content.
• Keeps large files available for direct download and falls back to the original artifact archive when a ZIP entry uses an unsupported encoding.
• Provides per-artifact cleanup, clear-all cleanup, and a cache usage view.
• Uses a responsive Primer interface that follows Copilot's light and dark themes.

Security and local data

Artifact Explorer inherits eligible GitHub accounts from the Copilot app, GitHub CLI, or process environment. Tokens remain inside the extension process: the canvas receives only sanitized account metadata, while authenticated GitHub API requests are made by the local extension server.

Artifact ZIPs and preferences are stored under:

$COPILOT_HOME/extensions/pr-artifact-explorer/artifacts/

When COPILOT_HOME is unset, it defaults to ~/.copilot. Cached archives remain local until removed through the per-artifact or clear-all controls.

The canvas server validates its canonical loopback host and requires a per-instance capability token for API, artifact-content, and event requests. Static-site previews bind to a separate ephemeral 127.0.0.1 port, validate their loopback host, apply a restrictive content security policy, prevent path traversal, and stream files from the ZIP. A preview requires index.html at the artifact root. Static content is untrusted, remains sandboxed by the canvas, and has no access to GitHub tokens.

Install

Ask Copilot to install the committed extension:

Install this extension: https://github.com/github/awesome-copilot/tree/main/extensions/pr-artifact-explorer

You can also copy the folder to one of the supported extension locations:

• ~/.copilot/extensions/pr-artifact-explorer/ for user scope
• .github/extensions/pr-artifact-explorer/ for project scope

Reload extensions, then ask Copilot to open the pr-artifact-explorer canvas. You can optionally provide a repository (owner/name), pull request number, or GitHub pull request URL when opening it.

Agent actions

• open_pull_request { repository, pullNumber } - navigate an open canvas to a pull request.
• inspect_artifact { repository, artifactId } - download, index, detect, and open an Actions artifact.
• cache_status - report local artifact cache usage.
• clear_cache { artifactId? } - remove one cached artifact or clear the entire cache.
• accounts - list sanitized GitHub account metadata available to the extension.
• set_account { id } - select the GitHub account used for repository and artifact requests.

Included third-party components

The extension bundles Primer CSS, Octicons, and the asciinema player for offline rendering. Their notices are preserved in third-party-licenses/.