Github itself is a Github project, therefore using anything other than the API would be some code duplication. Merging, Pull-Requests, Branches, Issues: all this is already covered when using the normal API.
I'm sure it could be "more efficient" when having code explicitely for this purpose, but then again you have to maintain to different code bases which do the same.
I'm sure it could be "more efficient" when having code explicitely for this purpose, but then again you have to maintain to different code bases which do the same.