From e12403b34880dd1a4fce1b0f624b6086e853064b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: rhiroe <ride.poke@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2026 03:12:06 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] improve(github-cli): retry gh extension install before
 falling back to git clone

gh extension install failures fell through silently to the git-clone
fallback. Retry it up to 3 times with backoff before falling back,
since failures are most often transient (network/API rate limiting)
rather than the extension being fundamentally unusable, and log each
failed attempt's exit code so provisioning logs show why the fallback
was hit.

Extensions that require a build step (e.g. github/gh-stack) are not
usable after a plain git clone. Improving the fallback itself (e.g.
downloading a prebuilt release binary) would add significant logic and
ongoing maintenance cost, so that path is not pursued here; instead,
after cloning, check for the expected gh-<name> executable and exit 1
if it's missing, so a build-requiring extension fails provisioning
loudly instead of leaving a broken extension in place.
---
 src/github-cli/scripts/install-extensions.sh | 35 ++++++++++++++++----
 1 file changed, 29 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/github-cli/scripts/install-extensions.sh b/src/github-cli/scripts/install-extensions.sh
index 05285aa7b..be861283a 100644
--- a/src/github-cli/scripts/install-extensions.sh
+++ b/src/github-cli/scripts/install-extensions.sh
@@ -20,19 +20,42 @@ install_extension() {
     local extension="$1"
     local extensions_root
     local repo_name
+    local install_status
+    local attempt
+    local max_attempts=3
 
     extensions_root="${XDG_DATA_HOME:-"${HOME}/.local/share"}/gh/extensions"
     repo_name="${extension##*/}"
 
     mkdir -p "${extensions_root}"
-    if [ ! -d "${extensions_root}/${repo_name}" ]; then
-        if ! gh extension install "${extension}"; then
-            git \
-                -c credential.helper= \
-                -c credential.helper='!gh auth git-credential' \
-                clone --depth 1 "https://github.com/${extension}.git" "${extensions_root}/${repo_name}"
+    if [ -d "${extensions_root}/${repo_name}" ]; then
+        return
+    fi
+
+    attempt=1
+    while [ "${attempt}" -le "${max_attempts}" ]; do
+        if gh extension install "${extension}"; then
+            return
+        fi
+        install_status=$?
+        echo "Warning: 'gh extension install ${extension}' failed (exit code ${install_status}, attempt ${attempt}/${max_attempts})." >&2
+        attempt=$((attempt + 1))
+        if [ "${attempt}" -le "${max_attempts}" ]; then
+            sleep $((attempt * 2))
         fi
+    done
+
+    git \
+        -c credential.helper= \
+        -c credential.helper='!gh auth git-credential' \
+        clone --depth 1 "https://github.com/${extension}.git" "${extensions_root}/${repo_name}"
+
+    if [ ! -x "${extensions_root}/${repo_name}/gh-${repo_name}" ]; then
+        echo "Error: '${extension}' requires a build step; 'git clone' fallback won't work." >&2
+        rm -rf "${extensions_root}/${repo_name}"
+        exit 1
     fi
+    echo "Warning: cloned ${extension} instead of installing via 'gh extension install'." >&2
 }
 
 ensure_gh_extension_list_wrapper() {