Push GitHub Leads to Canny

Why Route GitHub Leads to Canny

Canny is the product feedback and roadmap tool used by developer-focused companies to collect feature requests, track votes, and prioritize what to build next. When GitLeads captures a developer who starred your competitor's repo or mentioned a keyword like "missing feature" or "would love if X supported Y," routing that signal into Canny creates a feedback loop that directly informs your product roadmap.

This is not about turning every lead into a Canny voter. It is about enriching your existing Canny posts with the GitHub identity of developers who are actively evaluating your category — so your product team knows which feature requests come from high-intent buyers versus casual browsers.

Integration Architecture: GitLeads → Canny

Canny does not have a native inbound lead API for creating users from external sources, but it does expose a user identification API and a REST API for creating posts programmatically. The recommended integration path is:

1. GitLeads captures a GitHub signal (new star, keyword mention) and fires a webhook
2. Your webhook receiver (n8n, Zapier, or custom service) receives the enriched lead payload
3. Check if the developer has already engaged with your product (email lookup in your CRM/auth system)
4. If known: use Canny user token API to associate their identity with existing posts they may have voted on
5. If unknown: create a Canny post on their behalf in a private "GitHub signals" board, tagged with signal type and repo
6. Notify your product team in Slack with the developer context — company, GitHub bio, signal trigger

Canny API: Creating Posts from GitHub Signals

// GitLeads webhook → Canny post creation
interface GitLeadsPayload {
  username: string;
  name: string;
  email?: string;
  company?: string;
  bio?: string;
  signal: { type: 'star' | 'keyword'; repo?: string; keyword?: string; context?: string };
}

async function routeLeadToCanny(lead: GitLeadsPayload) {
  const CANNY_API_KEY = process.env.CANNY_API_KEY!;
  const BOARD_ID = process.env.CANNY_BOARD_ID!;

  const signalContext = lead.signal.type === 'star'
    ? `Starred ${lead.signal.repo}`
    : `Mentioned "${lead.signal.keyword}" in GitHub`;

  const postTitle = `[${lead.company ?? lead.username}] ${signalContext}`;
  const postDetails = [
    `GitHub: https://github.com/${lead.username}`,
    `Bio: ${lead.bio ?? 'N/A'}`,
    `Company: ${lead.company ?? 'N/A'}`,
    `Signal: ${lead.signal.context ?? signalContext}`,
  ].join('\n');

  const res = await fetch('https://canny.io/api/v1/posts/create', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      apiKey: CANNY_API_KEY,
      boardID: BOARD_ID,
      authorID: 'YOUR_ADMIN_USER_ID',
      title: postTitle,
      details: postDetails,
    }),
  });
  return res.json();
}

What Signals to Route to Canny

Not every GitHub signal warrants a Canny post. Focus on the highest-signal events:

• Keyword hits containing "feature request", "would be nice", "missing", "wish" — direct product feedback
• Issue mentions referencing your product or category — competitor comparison context for product team
• Stars on competitor repos from developers who already use your product — churn risk + feature gap signal
• High-follower developers (500+) starring adjacent tools — influencer-level feedback worth prioritizing

Alternative: Zapier No-Code Workflow

1. Trigger: GitLeads webhook (new lead event)
2. Filter: Zap filter on signal_type = "keyword" AND keyword contains "feature"
3. Action: Canny "Create Post" Zapier action
4. Action 2: Slack message to #product-feedback with developer context and GitHub profile link