Cloud Routines' GitHub integration lacks issues:write permission — gh issue create fails while git push/reads succeed, no way to grant scope
Preflight Checklist
- [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet (closest related issues identified below — none cover this specific gap; see "Why this isn't a duplicate")
- [x] This is a single bug report
- [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code
What's Wrong?
A Cloud Routine (freecad-mcp dependency audit handler, weekly, targeting my own public repo blwfish/freecad-mcp) runs a script that does git push and gh issue create against the repo. Git push/read operations work correctly, but every run's issue-creation step fails with:
GitHub issue creation failed (integration token lacks issues: write permission)
Claude itself detected and reported this failure clearly in the run's own summary — it did not fail silently. But there is no user-facing control to grant the missing permission:
github.com/settings/installations→ Authorized OAuth Apps shows "Claude" (byanthropics) authorized, but the page only exposes generic scopes ("Verify your GitHub identity," "Know what resources you can access," "Act on your behalf") — no per-repo or per-resource (Issues/Contents/PRs) permission list, and no toggle.- The same page states "Claude has not been installed on any accounts you have access to" — i.e. there is no separate GitHub App installation object for this account to configure, only the OAuth authorization.
- I confirmed the repo itself is not the problem:
has_issues: true, not archived/disabled, and my own authenticatedghsession has full admin permission on it. - I also ruled out classic personal-access-token scope entirely — I have several PATs with full
reposcope, none of which are what the Cloud Routine actually authenticates with (the Routine uses Anthropic's own GitHub integration/token, confirmed by the routine's own error message referring to "integration token," not a user PAT).
So: whatever scope Anthropic's backend requests when provisioning GitHub access for Cloud Routines does not include issues: write, and as the account owner I have no settings surface to add it.
What Should Happen?
Either:
- The GitHub integration used by Cloud Routines requests
issues: write(or the equivalent fine-grained "Issues: Read and write" permission) as part of its standard permission set, sogh issue create/ issue-comment operations succeed the same waygit pushdoes, or - If that scope is intentionally withheld for some accounts/repos, surface an actionable path to grant it (e.g. a real GitHub App installation screen, analogous to what's missing per #74542) rather than leaving the account owner with only a generic "Claude has not been installed on any accounts you have access to" OAuth authorization page with no controls.
Why this isn't a duplicate of related issues
I found several open issues in the same problem space (Cloud Routines + GitHub permissions). None describe this specific symptom (repo access otherwise works; only issues: write is missing; no installation object exists at all to configure):
- #71733 ("Option to log issue in GitHub from Claude Code can fail silently") — that's the CLI's local
/feedbackflow shelling out to the user's localghCLI and picking the wrong of several locally-authenticated accounts (e.g. a restricted GitHub Enterprise account). It's a local-auth account-selection bug in the CLI. My case has no localghCLI involved at all — the Cloud Routine authenticates via Anthropic's own hosted GitHub integration, and the failure is scope-shaped, not account-selection-shaped. Also notably, in my case the failure was not silent — Claude's own run summary reported the exact cause.
- #73782 and #72933 — both describe a hard 403 "GitHub access is not enabled for this session" from the session's GitHub egress proxy, blocking all
api.github.com/repos/<org>/...reads for organization-owned repos, despite the GitHub App being installed. My repo (blwfish/freecad-mcp) is a personal-account repo, not an org repo, and access is not blocked — reads,git push, and (per the routine's own report) everything except issue creation work fine. This is a narrower, resource-specific permission gap (Issues only), not a session-wide access gate.
- #74542 — describes zero GitHub App installations existing at all (
settings/installations→ "Installed GitHub Apps" is completely empty, even after disconnect/reconnect), causing the routine to be auto-disabled (auto_disabled_repo_access) before doing any work. In my case the routine runs successfully every week and completes its git operations — there just isn't a write grant for Issues specifically. My "Authorized OAuth Apps" page similarly shows no installation object, but the practical symptom differs: theirs never runs at all; mine runs everything except one specific write operation with the failure explicitly surfaced.
- #74243 — a generic, undetailed report ("git permission error" caught at run time instead of validation time, no error text, no repro). Doesn't identify which permission or why; may be the same underlying class of issue but has no actionable content to compare against.
- #62791 (Cloud routines inject attribution into PR/issue comments) — unrelated; about attribution text content, not permissions.
Steps to Reproduce
- Create a Cloud Routine (Routines UI,
blwfish/freecad-mcpis a public, personal-account repo — no GitHub org involved) whose prompt runsgit push(orgh pr create) followed bygh issue create --repo blwfish/freecad-mcp ...for some code path. - Let it run on schedule.
- Observe: git operations succeed;
gh issue createfails with an integration/token permission error referencingissues: write. - Check
github.com/settings/installations: only "Authorized OAuth Apps → Claude" exists, with no per-resource permission list and no "Installed GitHub Apps" entry to configure.
Error Messages/Logs
Note: GitHub issue creation failed (integration token lacks issues: write permission), so no issue was opened automatically — you'll need to create one manually if you want to track this.
Claude Model
None
Is this a regression?
Unknown — I don't have evidence this ever worked for issue creation specifically (git push/PR creation from routines has worked fine).
Platform
Claude Code on the web (Cloud Routines)
Additional Information
Happy to share the specific routine ID / run transcript if useful for repro.
3 Comments
Periodic verification — August 2026
Checked against Claude Code v2.1.220 (latest release as of 2026-08-01).
Reproduction test: ℹ️ Not testable from a local run — the missing scope is a property of the Cloud Routines execution environment's GitHub token, not of the local CLI, so it can only be observed from inside a routine.
Release notes through v2.1.220: no mention of
issues:write, of configurable GitHub scopes for routines, or of any way to grant additional scope to the routines integration.This is the longest-inactive issue in this set (26 days, no maintainer response since filing on 2026-07-06). The asymmetry stands as reported:
git pushand read operations succeed whilegh issue createfails, with no user-facing control to widen the scope.This comment is posted automatically every ~10-20 days to prevent stale-bot closure. Reporter (@blwfish) will close upon confirming resolved.
Periodic verification — August 2026
Checked against Claude Code v2.1.238 (latest release as of 2026-08-21).
Reproduction test: ℹ️ Not testable this run — confirming the scope grant would require dispatching a Cloud Routine that calls
gh issue create, which this verification pass does not do.Release notes through v2.1.238: no mention of a fix. The only routines-adjacent entry in this window is v2.1.211 ("Fixed routines with no schedule reporting a next run time in the year 1"), which is unrelated to the GitHub integration's token scopes. Still no documented way to grant
issues:writeto a routine.This comment is posted automatically every ~20 days to prevent stale-bot closure (threshold: 28 days). Reporter (@blwfish) will close upon confirming resolved.
Periodic verification — September 2026
Checked against Claude Code v2.1.278 (latest release as of 2026-09-21).
Reproduction test: ℹ️ Not testable from the automated runner — requires a Cloud Routine run attempting
gh issue create.Release notes through v2.1.278: no mention of an
issues:writescope for the Cloud Routines GitHub integration. (v2.1.274 improved the error toast when a routine's GitHub trigger can't be linked — unrelated to token scope.)This comment is posted automatically every ~20 days to prevent stale-bot closure (threshold: 28 days). Reporter (@blwfish) will close upon confirming resolved.