Testing the All-Contributors App

Understanding GitHub Apps and Local Development

What is a GitHub App?

A GitHub App is how bots interact with GitHub. It’s:

• An account - GitHub knows “this is the AllContributors bot”
• A permission system - defines what the bot can read/write (issues, PRs, files)
• A webhook endpoint - where GitHub sends events (like “someone commented on an issue”)

When someone comments @all-contributors please add @user for code, GitHub sends that comment as a webhook to whatever URL is configured in the GitHub App settings.

Why create your own test app?

The production AllContributors app is configured to send webhooks to the production Vercel deployment. You can’t use it for local development because:

1. The webhooks go to production, not your laptop
2. Your changes would affect real repositories
3. You’d need to deploy every change just to test it

Local development flow:

1. Create your own GitHub App - your personal copy with its own settings
2. Point its webhooks at your local machine - so events come to you
3. Install it only on test repos - isolated from production
4. Run the bot code locally - make changes, test immediately
5. When ready - deploy to Vercel and test with preview deployments

This gives you a safe sandbox to develop in.