CircleCI

Overview

Fetch CircleCI pipeline status, failed job details, and test failure messages for a GitHub pull request using gh and the CircleCI API v2.

Prerequisites

• gh CLI authenticated with the target GitHub org
• CIRCLECI_TOKEN defined in ~/.zshenv (a CCIPAT_... personal API token)
• jq for JSON parsing

Authentication

The $CIRCLECI_TOKEN env var often does not expand in the Claude Code shell. To work around this, read the token directly from ~/.zshenv before making API calls:

CIRCLECI_TOKEN=$(grep CIRCLECI_TOKEN ~/.zshenv | sed 's/.*=//')

Run this once at the start, then use $CIRCLECI_TOKEN in subsequent curl commands within the same Bash invocation.

All curl commands below assume CIRCLECI_TOKEN has been set this way. Always use /usr/bin/curl (absolute path) to avoid PATH issues.

Workflow

When the user provides a GitHub PR URL or number (with repo context), follow these steps:

1. Get CI check status

gh pr checks <pr_url> 2>&1 | head -60

Output is tab-separated: check_name \t status \t duration \t url. Look for checks with fail status. The URL contains the CircleCI workflow ID.

2. Extract workflow ID from failed checks

Parse the workflow ID from the CircleCI URL in step 1 — it's the UUID in .../workflows/{workflow_id}.

If the gh pr checks output doesn't clearly show the workflow URL, use the GitHub API:

gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/commits/$(gh pr view <pr_number> --repo {owner}/{repo} --json headRefOid --jq .headRefOid)/check-runs \
  --jq '.check_runs[] | select(.conclusion == "failure") | {name: .name, details_url: .details_url}'

3. List failed jobs in the workflow

CIRCLECI_TOKEN=$(grep CIRCLECI_TOKEN ~/.zshenv | sed 's/.*=//') && \
/usr/bin/curl -s -H "Circle-Token: $CIRCLECI_TOKEN" \
  "https://circleci.com/api/v2/workflow/{workflow_id}/job" | \
  jq -r '.items[] | select(.status == "failed") | "\(.name): \(.job_number)"'

4. Get test failures from a failed job

CIRCLECI_TOKEN=$(grep CIRCLECI_TOKEN ~/.zshenv | sed 's/.*=//') && \
/usr/bin/curl -s -H "Circle-Token: $CIRCLECI_TOKEN" \
  "https://circleci.com/api/v2/project/{project_slug}/{job_number}/tests" | \
  jq -r '.items[] | select(.result == "failure") | "FAILED: \(.classname) - \(.name)\nMessage: \(.message)\n"'

Project slug format: gh/{org}/{repo}

5. (Optional) Check if a failure is a known flaky test

CIRCLECI_TOKEN=$(grep CIRCLECI_TOKEN ~/.zshenv | sed 's/.*=//') && \
/usr/bin/curl -s -H "Circle-Token: $CIRCLECI_TOKEN" \
  "https://circleci.com/api/v2/insights/{project_slug}/flaky-tests" | \
  jq -r '.flaky_tests[] | select(.test_name | test("{search_pattern}")) | "\(.test_name) - \(.times_flaked) flakes"'

API Reference

Auth: Circle-Token HTTP header.

Project slug: gh/{org}/{repo}

Common Use Cases

"Did the PR pass CI?" Run step 1. Report pass/fail status for each check.

"What tests failed?" Run steps 1-4. Report the failed test names and failure messages.

"Is this a flaky test?" Run step 5 after identifying the failing test name.

Notes

• When reporting results, include the test class, test name, and failure message.
• If no test failures are found but the job failed, the failure may be a build/setup error rather than a test failure — report the job name and status.