>I do not understand why GitHub Issues aren't git repos, like most other GitHub collections.
Doing that would make their implementation trickier since they'd have to find a way to make issues play nicely with the git object system which may not be completely trivial. On top of that they have very little incentive to do that because having a custom API and custom tools to access it increases lock-in. If github issues were just git repositories you'd be able to migrate them very easily. I'm sure they very much don't want to decentralize this.
I agree with your general point though, I'm very much a shell power user but I seldom use these tools because they don't seem particularly more efficient than just using the web browser in my experience. As you point out the power of the shell is to combine commands. If I just want shortcuts to list various attributes of the project I can do that with bookmark keywords in firefox for instance.
While the issues aren't a git repo in themselves, their API is actually quite open and usable. I've written a few migration services for a past employer where management insisted on JIRA but developers wanted Github so my service would basically batch migrate changes (issue state, description, comments etc..) from Github to JIRA so management would get the updates while devs used Github solely.
Doing that would make their implementation trickier since they'd have to find a way to make issues play nicely with the git object system which may not be completely trivial. On top of that they have very little incentive to do that because having a custom API and custom tools to access it increases lock-in. If github issues were just git repositories you'd be able to migrate them very easily. I'm sure they very much don't want to decentralize this.
I agree with your general point though, I'm very much a shell power user but I seldom use these tools because they don't seem particularly more efficient than just using the web browser in my experience. As you point out the power of the shell is to combine commands. If I just want shortcuts to list various attributes of the project I can do that with bookmark keywords in firefox for instance.