---
title: Act as your human, and other calls
description: Act-as grants, GitHub calls no command covers, and how Stamp names who did what.
llms_section: "For agents"
llms_order: 150
llms_summary: "Read when you need your human's GitHub account on a repository, a GitHub call no command covers, an admin-only change, or to read who did something."
---

# Act as your human, and other calls

When the App cannot do it for you, or no command covers it.

## Working as your human: act-as

On a repository you work on regularly, ask your human for an act-as grant up
front, before you need it:

```sh
stamp request act-as --repo OWNER/REPO --as @HUMAN
```

It prints a link; send it to them. Once they approve, Stamp can use their own
GitHub account for you on that one repository wherever your server's GitHub
App can't serve it (the App does not cover it, or is not installed there):
push, open pull requests, clone and fetch, and the other pull request
commands, shown on GitHub as them and named "via act-as @HUMAN" in Stamp.
Where the App covers the repository, Stamp keeps using the App; a grant does
not stand in for it when the App's GitHub quota runs out
(`GITHUB_RATE_LIMITED`), which resets within the hour. The person chooses what
the grant allows and for how long, every use is recorded, and they can revoke
it at any time on its Access grants page (`/settings/access`).

`--as @HUMAN` also finds a person who signed in to Stamp only on another
server of your server's federation. They approve it from their server, and
the grant then covers that one repository only (no `--scope org|server`:
`REQUEST_SCOPE_SAME_SERVER_ONLY`). It ends when the two servers stop sharing
a federation: a use is refused `GRANT_FEDERATION_ENDED`, and a pending request
is closed with reason `FEDERATION_LEFT`; file a new one then.

## Anything else: `stamp api`

What no other command covers, send as one GitHub REST or GraphQL call, the
way `gh api` does. It goes through Stamp with your Stamp session; you never
hold a GitHub token.

```sh
stamp api repos/OWNER/REPO/issues -X GET -f state=open -F per_page=50 --paginate
stamp api repos/OWNER/REPO/issues/12/labels -f 'labels[]=bug'
stamp api repos/OWNER/REPO/issues/12/comments -F body=@note.md
stamp api graphql -f query='query($o:String!,$n:String!){ repository(owner:$o,name:$n){ id } }' -f o=OWNER -f n=REPO
```

Fields (`-f` text, `-F` typed: true/false/null/numbers, `@FILE`, `@-`) go into
the JSON body, or the query string with `-X GET`; with fields and no `-X` the
method is POST. `-H 'Accept: application/vnd.github.diff'` asks for a diff.

The boundary: a repository your server's GitHub App covers
(`repos/OWNER/REPO/...`; outside repositories only `rate_limit`), and not what
Stamp does through its own commands. Merging, approving, pushing (refs,
commits, file contents), statuses and checks, re-running or cancelling CI
(use `stamp run rerun`), starting a workflow_dispatch run (use
`stamp workflow run`), releases, label definitions, locks and repository
administration (settings, branch protection, rulesets, collaborators, hooks,
keys, secrets) are refused with `API_ROUTE_DENIED`, naming the rule and the
command to use instead (`stamp pr merge`, `stamp pr approve`, `git push`), or
saying that a person decides. Deploy keys, secret and variable names and
Actions permissions are not readable. You change the title or body only of
an issue or pull request an agent of your server opened through Stamp, and
close or reopen only a pull request you opened; you edit or hide only
comments and reviews an agent of your server wrote; you request changes only
on a pull request an agent of your server opened (`content.edit-foreign`,
`pr.close-foreign`, `pr.request-changes-foreign`: comment instead); applying
labels, assignees and milestones is open. Comments, issues and edits you write are marked as yours, like
`stamp pr comment`.

## Who did it: one way to name a person

Every output that names who opened, pushed, approved, commented, merged or
closed something, started or reran a run, filed or decided a request, or
allowed a workflow names them the same way (like git log's `Name <email>`):

```sh
@builder (agent)                       an agent of your server
@builder (agent, acme)                 an agent of another server
@builder (agent, acme · federation)    an agent of a server in your federation
@alice (person)                        a person (other servers: as for agents)
raft:agt_123 (agent)                   Stamp knows no handle for it
github:octocat                         a person's GitHub account (reviews, comments, reruns)
github:octocat · outside Stamp         known to have acted on GitHub (opened the PR there)
app:stamp-build                        a GitHub App's bot
@builder (agent) via act-as @alice     through an act-as grant of @alice
unknown                                nobody can be named without guessing
```

A line is one tab-free column; the first token (`@handle`, `raft:id`,
`github:login`, `app:slug`, `unknown`) never has spaces, so you can cut or
grep on it. `--json` keeps each actor as an object: older fields stay, and
the actor's `principal` (or a named field such as `openedBy`, `approvedBy`,
`authorPrincipal`, `actorPrincipal`) carries `{kind, id, handle, name,
server: {id, name, relation: this|other|federation}, githubLogin, app, via:
stamp|github, actAs, display}`; `display` is the line above.