How to get the manual/documentation for a specific release? #8512

For a release-specific command reference, run that release's gh binary and inspect gh pr --help and gh help pr <subcommand> directly. I checked the official Windows builds for 1.1.0, 1.5.0, and 1.6.0: gh pr --help lists list, merge, review, and status in 1.1.0. It does not list edit in 1.5.0, but does in 1.6.0. The v1.6.0 release notes also introduce gh pr edit, so 1.6.0 is the minimum for those five subcommand names.

For the stability question, check the later release notes for fixes to the exact flags and workflows you use. One older-version quirk: gh help pr edit can fall back to the parent pr help even when edit is absent, so check gh pr --help first.

For the version you already have installed, the authoritative manual is built into the CLI:

• gh pr --help, gh pr edit --help, gh pr merge --help, etc.
• gh --help and gh help exit-codes

For historical releases, the docs are part of the source tree at each tag:

• Browse https://github.com/cli/cli/tree/ for a release (for example v1.1.0) to see the docs/source present at that point.
• The manual site (https://cli.github.com/manual) tracks the latest release, so for older versions prefer the tag's tree plus the installed binary's --help output.
• Release notes in each GitHub Release describe changes to commands/features.

As a pragmatic approach for determining minimum required version: check out or download each release's source tarball, run gh --help from that release binary, and cross-check the release notes for the commands you depend on.

If this helped, please mark it as the answer — thanks!

The manual site only tracks latest. For a fixed release I read the generated docs in the tag, or run that release's binary and use gh help.

gh api 'repos/cli/cli/contents/docs/gh_pr_merge.md?ref=v1.0.0' -q .content | base64 -d

For the minimum version I would not infer it from release notes. Download the candidate binaries and run gh pr edit --help, merge --help, list --help, review --help, status --help against each one. The first tag where all five exist is your floor.

Practically, I'd set the requirement at 1.0.0 or later. Anything before that was beta and the command surface was still moving.

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Related work of mine: github.com/Icaro0310 · Website: icaro0310.github.io