Git Integration

CostLens can deliver cost alerts — new high-priority recommendations, budget breaches, and other notifications — directly into a GitHub or GitLab repository as an issue, alongside your existing Slack and Teams channels. This brings cost findings into the same place your team already tracks infrastructure and ops work, instead of requiring anyone to check a separate dashboard.

How it helps#

Most cost problems eventually become engineering work — resizing an instance, deleting a stale volume, or replacing a hardcoded setting. Routing those findings straight into your repository as issues means:

• Cost alerts show up where the team already triages work, with no extra tool to check.
• A recommendation can be referenced, assigned, and closed using your existing repo workflow.
• Nothing is silently missed because it only appeared in an email or a dashboard nobody opened that day.

Connecting a repository#

1. Go to Settings → Integrations.
2. Find the GitHub or GitLab card and click Connect.
3. Enter the repository:
   • GitHub — owner/repo (no nested groups).
   • GitLab — group/subgroup/project (nested groups are fine). If you're on a self-hosted GitLab instance, add its base URL.
4. Provide an access token:
   • GitHub — a fine-grained personal access token scoped to that repository, with Contents and Issues write access (add Pull requests write too if you plan to use Infrastructure-as-Code Fixes).
   • GitLab — a personal or project access token with the api scope.
5. Click Connect.

Your token is encrypted at rest and is never displayed again after saving — to change it later, edit the connection and enter a new one.

Testing the connection#

Once connected, click Test on the integration card. This performs a read-only permission check against your repository — it confirms CostLens can reach it and has the access it needs, without creating a real issue. A successful test shows Last verified with a timestamp; a failed test explains what's wrong (for example, a token that can read but not write).

Managing an existing connection#

From the same card you can:

• Edit — update the repository path or rotate the access token.
• Test — re-verify the connection at any time.
• Disconnect — remove the integration. You can reconnect later without losing any history.

If CostLens can no longer deliver to a connected repository (for example, a revoked token), the connection is automatically paused and marked Reconnect required so it doesn't keep failing silently — update the token to resume delivery.

What gets delivered#

A connected repository receives the same categories of alert already configured for your other notification channels — for example, new critical or high-severity recommendations. Each delivery opens as a new issue (or, where configured, a comment on an existing tracking issue) with the finding, its estimated savings, and a link back to the recommendation in CostLens.