A GitHub Action that lets your Discord community decide whose contributions get through.

How it works

1. A contributor opens a pull request.
2. Arbiterer checks whether the author has linked their GitHub account to Discord. If not, it comments with a link to do so.
3. Once linked, your rules run against the author's Discord identity, and the check passes or fails.
4. If the author links their account after a failed check, Arbiterer re-runs the check automatically.

Rules are optional. Without them, authors only need to link their accounts.
With close-on-failure, a failed check closes the pull request and a later pass reopens it.

Important

Links are one-to-one per repository: one GitHub account maps to one Discord account, and vice versa. The same Discord account can be linked to different GitHub accounts in different repositories.

Getting started

Install the GitHub App

Install the Arbiterer GitHub App on every repository that uses Arbiterer, or on the organization that owns those repositories. The app posts and updates the comments that guide authors through account linking; without it, every run fails.

Add the workflow

Add a workflow to .github/workflows/:

Warning

Use pull_request_target so fork pull requests run the workflow and rules from your default branch.

name: Arbiterer

on:
  pull_request_target:
    types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]

permissions:
  contents: read # Read repository metadata
  pull-requests: write # Open and close pull requests (when close-on-failure is enabled)
  id-token: write # Verify the request comes from this repository (OIDC)

jobs:
  arbiterer:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: sonolink/arbiterer@v1
        with:
          # Exempt the repository owner, organization members, and collaborators.
          exempt-associations: OWNER,MEMBER,COLLABORATOR
          # close-on-failure: true # Close failing PRs and reopen them automatically once the author links or a recheck passes

If you only need authors to link their accounts, this is enough. To enforce conditions on the linked Discord account, add rules.

Usage

Rechecking a pull request

If a rule failed, the author can request another run without pushing:

/arbiterer recheck

Arbiterer adds a thumbs-up (👍) reaction when it starts a manual recheck and a confused (😕) reaction when the recheck does not start, such as during the cooldown or when no workflow run is available. If Arbiterer cannot authenticate with GitHub, it cannot react.

Note

Only the pull request author can trigger a manual recheck, at most once every five minutes per pull request. A failed start can be retried immediately. Commands on merged pull requests, or on pull requests closed by someone other than Arbiterer, are ignored without a reaction.

Closing and reopening pull requests

With close-on-failure enabled, a failed check closes the pull request. Arbiterer reopens a pull request it closed once the author links their account or a later check passes. It never reopens a pull request closed by anyone else or one that has been merged.

Configuration

Inputs

All inputs are optional.

Input	Description	Default
rules	JavaScript that decides whether the author passes. See Rules. Leave empty to require only a linked Discord account.	""
close-on-failure	Close the pull request when the author is unlinked or fails the rules, and reopen it once they pass. Requires pull-requests: write and the reopened event type.	false
comment-on-linked	Post a comment when the author is already linked. Set to false to comment only when the author needs to act. An existing comment that asks the author to act is always updated.	true
exempt-associations	Comma-separated GitHub author associations to exempt. Exempt authors skip account linking and rules.	""

Rules

The rules input is JavaScript evaluated on every workflow run. It has access to:

Name	Description
user	The author's Discord user object, including flags, MFA status, and more.
resolveMember(guildId)	Async. Returns the author's guild member object, or null if they are not in the server.
core	The GitHub Actions toolkit. Call core.setFailed(message) to fail the check and show message to the contributor.

For instance, to require MFA, and at least one week of server membership:

- uses: sonolink/arbiterer@v1
  with:
    rules: |
      const GUILD = "1471146455002775624";
      const weekMs = 7 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000;

      if (!user.mfa_enabled) {
        core.setFailed("Enable two-factor authentication on your Discord account.");
        return;
      }

      const member = await resolveMember(GUILD);

      if (!member) {
        core.setFailed("Join the server at https://discord.gg/tPHVWBPedt.");
        return;
      }

      const joined = member.joined_at ? Date.parse(member.joined_at) : 0;
      if (!joined || Date.now() - joined < weekMs) {
        core.setFailed(`You joined ${member.joined_at ?? "recently"}. Please wait 7 days before trying again.`);
      }

License

Apache License 2.0. See the License File.

© 2026 SonoLink Development Team