Footer Control

Control whether AI-generated footers are added to created and updated GitHub items (issues, pull requests, discussions, releases). Footers provide attribution and links to workflow runs, but you may want to omit them for cleaner content or when using custom branding.

Global Footer Control

Set footer: false at the safe-outputs level to hide footers for all output types:

safe-outputs:
  footer: false                      # hide footers globally
  create-issue:
    title-prefix: "[ai] "
  create-pull-request:
    title-prefix: "[ai] "

When footer: false is set, visible attribution text is omitted from item bodies but hidden XML markers (workflow-id, tracker-id) remain for searchability. Applies to all output types: create-issue, create-pull-request, create-discussion, update-issue, update-pull-request, update-discussion, and update-release.

Per-Handler Footer Control

Override the global setting for specific output types by setting footer at the handler level:

safe-outputs:
  footer: false                      # global default: no footers
  create-issue:
    title-prefix: "[issue] "
    # inherits footer: false
  create-pull-request:
    title-prefix: "[pr] "
    footer: true                     # override: show footer for PRs only

Individual handler settings always take precedence over the global setting.

PR Review Footer Control

For PR reviews (submit-pull-request-review), the footer field supports conditional control over when the footer is added to the review body:

safe-outputs:
  create-pull-request-review-comment:
  submit-pull-request-review:
    footer: "if-body"         # conditional footer based on review body

The footer field accepts "always" (default), "none", or "if-body" (footer only when the review has body text). Booleans are accepted: true → "always", false → "none". Use "if-body" for clean approval reviews — approvals without body text appear without a footer, while reviews with comments include it.

What’s Preserved When Footer is Hidden

Even with footer: false, hidden HTML markers remain:

• <!-- gh-aw-workflow-id: WORKFLOW_NAME --> — for search and tracking
• <!-- gh-aw-tracker-id: unique-id --> — for issue/discussion tracking (when applicable)

These markers enable searching for workflow-created items even when footers are hidden.

Searching for Workflow-Created Items

You can use the workflow-id marker to find all items created by a specific workflow on GitHub.com. The marker is always included in the body of issues, pull requests, discussions, and comments, regardless of the footer setting.

Search Examples:

Find all open issues created by the daily-team-status workflow:

repo:owner/repo is:issue is:open "gh-aw-workflow-id: daily-team-status" in:body

Find all pull requests created by the security-audit workflow:

repo:owner/repo is:pr "gh-aw-workflow-id: security-audit" in:body

Find all items (issues, PRs, discussions) from any workflow in your organization:

org:your-org "gh-aw-workflow-id:" in:body

Find comments from a specific workflow:

repo:owner/repo "gh-aw-workflow-id: bot-responder" in:comments

Tip

The workflow name in the marker is the filename without .md. Combine with filters like is:open or created:>2024-01-01, and use in:body or in:comments as appropriate. See GitHub advanced search.

Use Cases

Clean content for public repositories:

safe-outputs:
  footer: false
  create-issue:
    title-prefix: "[report] "
    labels: [automated]

Custom branding - footers on PRs only:

safe-outputs:
  footer: false                      # hide for issues
  create-issue:
    title-prefix: "[issue] "
  create-pull-request:
    footer: true                     # show for PRs
    title-prefix: "[pr] "

Minimal documentation updates:

safe-outputs:
  update-release:
    footer: false                    # clean release notes
    max: 1

Backward Compatibility

The default value for footer is true, maintaining backward compatibility with existing workflows. To hide footers, you must explicitly set footer: false.

Customizing Footer Messages

Instead of hiding footers entirely, you can customize the footer message text using the messages.footer template. This allows you to maintain attribution while using custom branding:

safe-outputs:
  messages:
    footer: ">  Powered by [{workflow_name}]({run_url})"
  create-issue:
    title-prefix: "[bot] "

The messages.footer template supports variables like {workflow_name}, {run_url}, {triggering_number}, and more. See Custom Messages for complete documentation on message templates and available variables.

Related Documentation

• Safe Outputs - Complete safe outputs reference
• Custom Messages - Message templates and variables
• Frontmatter - All configuration options for workflows