Use minimal response types for tool results

[tommaso-moro]

Summary

Return compact successful responses for pull request statuses, pull request review comment replies, and individual Actions workflow runs while preserving identifiers, diagnostics, and human-facing links needed for follow-up work.

Why

Several successful tool responses include SDK transport metadata and nested objects that are not needed for diagnosis or supported follow-up calls. Focused contracts reduce response payload size without changing input schemas.

What changed

• Added minimal combined-status and repository-status types for pull_request_read.get_status.
• Returned the existing MinimalResponse contract for newly created pull request review comment replies in body-only and body-plus-reaction modes.
• Reused MinimalWorkflowRun for actions_get.get_workflow_run so singular and list responses stay aligned.
• Added serialization coverage for retained fields, omitted metadata, empty status lists, and all reply modes.

Response contracts and estimated size

The estimates below compare minified JSON generated from representative SDK and test fixtures before and after this change. Exact savings vary with populated optional fields and content length.

Method	Representative fixture	Before	After	Estimated reduction
pull_request_read.get_status	No individual statuses	216 B	98 B	54.6%
pull_request_read.get_status	Two individual statuses	1,129 B	596 B	47.2%
add_reply_to_pull_request_comment	Populated reply comment	2,375 B	102 B	95.7%
actions_get.get_workflow_run	Existing representative workflow-run fixture	4,342 B	1,015 B	76.6%

pull_request_read.get_status

Retained combined-status fields: state, sha, total_count, and statuses.

Dropped combined-status fields: name, commit_url, and repository_url.

Retained fields for each status: state, context, description, target_url, created_at, and updated_at.

Dropped fields for each status: id, node_id, url, avatar_url, and creator. The human-facing target_url remains available; only the REST transport url is removed.

add_reply_to_pull_request_comment

Retained output fields for a newly created reply: id as a string and url populated from the comment's human-facing html_url. The reaction-only path was already minimal and is unchanged; body-plus-reaction responses now contain minimal comment and reaction objects.

Dropped reply-comment fields: node_id, in_reply_to_id, body, path, diff_hunk, pull_request_review_id, position, original_position, start_line, line, original_line, original_start_line, side, start_side, commit_id, original_commit_id, user, reactions, created_at, updated_at, author_association, the REST transport url, pull_request_url, and subject_type. The source html_url key is replaced by the minimal response's url key rather than losing its value.

actions_get.get_workflow_run

Retained fields: id, name, display_title, workflow_id, run_number, run_attempt, event, status, conclusion, head_branch, head_sha, path, html_url, created_at, updated_at, and run_started_at.

Retained nested data: head_commit.message; pull request numbers in pull_requests; compact actor and triggering_actor values containing login, id, profile_url, and avatar_url; and referenced workflow path, sha, and ref values.

Dropped fields: node_id, check_suite_id, check_suite_node_id, url, jobs_url, logs_url, check_suite_url, artifacts_url, cancel_url, rerun_url, previous_attempt_url, workflow_url, full repository and head_repository objects, all pull request fields except number, actor fields outside the compact identity above, and all head-commit fields except message.

MCP impact

• No tool or API changes
• Tool schema or behavior changed
• New tool added

Successful response bodies for the three methods above are smaller. Their input schemas and error behavior are unchanged.

Prompts tested (tool changes only)

• Not tested through an interactive client; handler tests cover requests to get a pull request status, reply or react to a review comment, and get an Actions workflow run.

Security / limits

• No security or limits impact
• Auth / permissions considered
• Data exposure, filtering, or token/size limits considered

Responses intentionally omit unused metadata while retaining identifiers needed by supported follow-up operations.

Tool renaming

• I am renaming tools as part of this PR (e.g. a part of a consolidation effort)
  • I have added the new tool aliases in deprecated_tool_aliases.go
• I am not renaming tools as part of this PR

Note: if you're renaming tools, you must add the tool aliases. For more information on how to do so, please refer to the official docs.

Lint & tests

• Linted locally with ./script/lint
• Tested locally with ./script/test

Docs

• Not needed
• Updated (README / docs / examples)

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Reduces tool response payloads while retaining identifiers, diagnostics, and follow-up links.

Changes:

• Introduces compact pull request status responses.
• Minimizes review-comment reply results.
• Aligns singular workflow-run responses with existing minimal list types.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
pkg/github/pullrequests.go	Returns minimal status and reply responses.
pkg/github/pullrequests_test.go	Verifies compact status and reply serialization.
pkg/github/minimal_types.go	Adds minimal commit-status types and converters.
pkg/github/actions.go	Uses the minimal workflow-run response.
pkg/github/actions_test.go	Verifies compact workflow-run serialization.

Review details

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• Files reviewed: 5/5 changed files
• Comments generated: 0
• Review effort level: Balanced