Import from GitHub Discussions
Bring your community discussions into IdeaLift with upvotes and labels
Overview
Many open-source projects and product teams use GitHub Discussions as a feature request forum. IdeaLift can import these discussions directly using your existing GitHub App connection, preserving upvote counts, labels, answered status, and discussion categories.
What gets imported
- Discussion title and body
- Author username
- Creation date
- Upvote count (mapped to votes)
- Labels (mapped to tags)
- Answered status (answered = shipped)
- Discussion category (as a tag)
- Discussion URL
What doesn't transfer
- Nested comments / replies
- Reactions other than upvotes
- Pinned status
- Discussion polls
- File attachments
Prerequisites
- 1GitHub App connected — Go to Settings → Integrations → GitHub and install the IdeaLift GitHub App on your repository.
- 2Discussions enabled — In your GitHub repo, go to Settings → Features and check Discussions. Without this, the import will return no results.
Step-by-Step Guide
Step 1: Open the Import Wizard
Navigate to Dashboard → Import and select GitHub Discussions under "Import from Connected Service".
Step 2: Enter Your Repository
Enter the repository in owner/repo format (e.g., vercel/next.js). This must be a repo where the IdeaLift GitHub App is installed.
Step 3: Filter by Category (Optional)
Click Load categories to see the available discussion categories in your repo (e.g., "Ideas", "Feature Requests", "Q&A"). Select a category to only import discussions from that category, or leave it as "All categories" to import everything.
Step 4: Preview and Select
Click Fetch Discussions. You'll see a preview of discussions with their upvote counts, labels, and answered status. Deselect any you don't want to import.
Step 5: Import
Click Import to create ideas from your selected discussions. Upvotes become vote counts, labels become tags, and answered discussions are marked as "Shipped".
Status Mapping
| GitHub Discussions Status | IdeaLift Status |
|---|---|
| Answered | Shipped |
| Unanswered (open) | Captured (or your chosen default) |
Tips
Use category filters — Most repos have a "Feature Requests" or "Ideas" category. Filter to that category to avoid importing Q&A or general discussions.
Enable "Skip duplicates" — If you've already imported some discussions, this prevents creating duplicates based on title or URL matching.
Upvotes are preserved — The upvote count from each discussion is imported as the vote count in IdeaLift, so your prioritization data carries over.
Also works for GitHub Issues — The GitHub Issues import now includes reaction-based vote counts (+1 reactions). Use it alongside Discussions for a complete picture.