feat: add discussions-migration script

[joshjohanning]

Creating script to copy/migrate discussions between GitHub orgs/repos. Started with a shell script, so including that for now, but ultimately because it's so long/complex, moving to node.

TODO

• copy discussions
• apply labels
• apply categories (note we cannot re-create categories they need to be done ahead of time!!)
• copy comments
• copy child comments
• including source metadata as expandable drodpown
• Use / recommend GitHub App instead of personal access token
• Polls don't copy options - probably nothing can be done here
• See if we can migrate the polls "statically" somehow; perhaps even using Mermaid!
• document polls and mermaid chart - their is a const if you want to or not copy the poll results as mermaid
• Mark as answers
• migrate discussion state (copying/migrating discussions as closed)
• Migrate reactions (statically)
• Better arguments/options usage and --help with yargs (don't want to take another dependency with yargs)
• Ability to pick up from a certain discussion post / post ID in recovery/restart scenarios
• Add API endpoint inputs for source and target
• Adds rate limit throttling with configurable delays (0.5s per API call, 5s between processing discussions)
• detect if secondary rate limit has been hit and progressively backoff
• adjust discussion processing delay to comply with GitHub's rate limit recommendations (wait 3 seconds after every discussion and comment creation)
• track and output primary and secondary rate limit hits for improved monitoring
• enhance rate limit handling with Octokit throttling (Retry-After) and remove manual retry logic

NOTES

• Secondary rate limits when creating discussions are a thing. This app uses progressive backoffs when secondary rate limits are hit.
• Pinning of discussions is not possible
• Creating discussion categories is not possible

Usage

For right now, have both Bash and Node.

export SOURCE_TOKEN=ghp_...
export TARGET_TOKEN=ghp_...
# export SOURCE_API_URL= # if GHES
# export TARGET_API_URL= # if GHES/ghe.com
cd ./scripts/migrate-discussions
npm i
node ./migrate-discussions.js source-org source-repo target-org target-repo

Example

Final output

[2025-10-02 19:38:44] ============================================================
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] Discussion copy completed!
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] Total discussions found: 10
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] Discussions created: 10
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] Discussions skipped: 0
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] Total comments found: 9
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] Comments copied: 9
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] Primary rate limits hit: 0
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] Secondary rate limits hit: 2
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] WARNING: 
The following categories were missing and need to be created manually:
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] WARNING:   - Blog posts!
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] WARNING: 
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] WARNING: To create categories manually:
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] WARNING: 1. Go to https://github.com/joshjohanning-emu/discussions-test/discussions
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] WARNING: 2. Click 'New discussion'
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] WARNING: 3. Look for category management options
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] WARNING: 4. Create the missing categories with appropriate names and descriptions
[2025-10-02 19:38:44] 
All done! ✨

SOURCE

Discussion list (note locked and closed translate):

Discussion with comments and child comments:

Discussion with answer:

Discussion with reactions:

Discussion with poll:

TARGET

Discussion list (note locked and closed translate):

Discussion with comments and child comments:

Discussion with answer:

Discussion with reactions:

Discussion with poll:

[github-actions]

📋 Lint Results

⚡ ./gh-cli scripts

✅ No issues found.

🔧 ./scripts scripts

✅ No issues found.

---

Lint results updated at Mon Oct 6 18:32:53 UTC 2025

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR adds a comprehensive Node.js script for migrating GitHub Discussions between repositories across different GitHub instances. The script supports cross-enterprise migrations with automatic rate limit handling, resume capabilities, and preserves discussion content including comments, reactions, polls, and metadata.

Key changes:

• Adds a complete discussions migration solution with Node.js implementation
• Includes comprehensive rate limiting and retry logic with Octokit throttling
• Supports resume functionality and cross-instance migrations

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 6 changed files in this pull request and generated 8 comments.

File	Description
scripts/migrate-discussions/package.json	Package configuration for the Node.js migration script with Octokit dependency
scripts/migrate-discussions/migrate-discussions.js	Main migration script with GraphQL queries, rate limiting, and comprehensive discussion copying logic
scripts/migrate-discussions/README.md	Detailed documentation covering usage, features, configuration options, and examples
scripts/README.md	Updated main scripts README to reference the new migrate-discussions script

Files not reviewed (1)

• scripts/migrate-discussions/package-lock.json: Language not supported