Instructor Repository Delivery

Automatically stores a private, instructor-only copy of every assessment — including both questions and answers — in a dedicated repository. Students only ever see their student-facing report; the instructor copy is written separately using a PAT that students cannot access.

How it works

When instructor_repo_token is provided the action:

1. Resolves the assignment name from the student repo's template_repository field (set automatically by GitHub Classroom). For non-Classroom repos it falls back to the source repository name.
2. Derives the instructor repository name as {assignment-name}-grillmycode in the same organisation.
3. Creates the repository as private on first run if it does not already exist.
4. Creates a folder named {student-login}/ in the instructor repository and writes the full assessment (questions and answers) to {student-login}/questions.md, overwriting any previous run for the same student. The folder is created automatically if it does not already exist.

The student-facing report is unaffected — whether it includes answers is still controlled by the existing include_answers input.

Prerequisites

See the Instructor Setup guide for full step-by-step instructions, including how to create the PAT and add it as an org-level secret so all student repositories inherit it automatically.

In short:

1. Create a PAT with repo scope (classic) or Administration + Contents write permissions (fine-grained).
2. Add it as an org-level Actions secret named INSTRUCTOR_REPO_TOKEN — this makes it available to all student repos without any per-repo configuration.

Example workflow

Copy this file to .github/workflows/grill-my-code.yml in the student repository.

name: Code Assessment

on:
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize]

jobs:
  generate-questions:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: write       # required to commit the output file back to the repo
      pull-requests: write  # required to post the PR comment
      models: read          # required to call GitHub Models API
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0    # full history required for diff resolution

      - uses: NSCC-ITC-Assessment/GrillMyCode@v1
        with:
          github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          num_questions: "5"
          # Store a full Q+A copy in the private instructor repository.
          # The repository is created automatically if it does not exist.
          instructor_repo_token: ${{ secrets.INSTRUCTOR_REPO_TOKEN }}

GitHub Classroom setup

For a Classroom assignment named assignment-1:

• Student repos: your-org/assignment-1-student-login
• Instructor repo (auto-created): your-org/assignment-1-grillmycode
• File written per student: student-login/questions.md

The assignment name is resolved automatically from the template_repository that GitHub Classroom sets on every student repo — no configuration is needed beyond the token.

Non-Classroom setup

For a generic repository named my-project:

• Instructor repo (auto-created): your-org/my-project-grillmycode
• File written per student: student-login/questions.md (resolved from the most recent non-bot git commit author)

Instructor report contents

The instructor copy always contains:

• Questions and answers (regardless of the include_answers setting)
• Student GitHub login and source repository name
• Commit range reviewed (base → head SHA)
• Full list of all files changed since the starter template (pre-filter)
• Assignment context files used (if any)
• AI provider and model