Push to origin from GitHub action
actions/checkout@v2
Version 2 of checkout resolves the detached HEAD state issue and simplifies pushing to origin.
name: Push commiton: pushjobs: report: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - uses: actions/checkout@v2 - name: Create report file run: date +%s > report.txt - name: Commit report run: | git config --global user.name 'Your Name' git config --global user.email 'your-username@users.noreply.github.com' git commit -am "Automated report" git push
If you need the push event to trigger other workflows, use a repo
scoped Personal Access Token.
- uses: actions/checkout@v2 with: token: ${{ secrets.PAT }}
actions/checkout@v1 (original answer)
To add some further detail to the excellent answer by @rmunn. The problem is that the actions/checkout@v1
action leaves the git repository in a detached HEAD state. See this issue about it for more detailed information: https://github.com/actions/checkout/issues/6
Here is a complete example to demonstrate how to get the checked out repository to a usable state and push to the remote.
name: Push commiton: pushjobs: report: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - uses: actions/checkout@v1 - name: Create report file run: date +%s > report.txt - name: Commit report run: | git config --global user.name 'Your Name' git config --global user.email 'your-username@users.noreply.github.com' git remote set-url origin https://x-access-token:${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}@github.com/$GITHUB_REPOSITORY git checkout "${GITHUB_REF:11}" git commit -am "Automated report" git push
To include untracked (new) files change the workflow to use the following.
git add -A git commit -m "Automated report"
The above workflow should work for the majority of events. For on: pull_request
workflows the merging branch (GITHUB_HEAD_REF
) should be checked out to replace the default merge commit.
Important: If you have other pull request checks besides the following workflow then you must use a Personal Access Token instead of the default GITHUB_TOKEN
.This is due to a deliberate limitation imposed by GitHub Actions that events raised by a workflow (such as push
) cannot trigger further workflow runs.This is to prevent accidental "infinite loop" situations, and as an anti-abuse measure.Using a repo
scoped Personal Access Token is an approved workaround. See this GitHub issue for further detail on the workaround.
name: Push commit on pull requeston: pull_requestjobs: report: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - uses: actions/checkout@v1 with: ref: ${{ github.head_ref }} - name: Create report file run: date +%s > report.txt - name: Commit report run: | git config --global user.name 'Your Name' git config --global user.email 'your-username@users.noreply.github.com' git remote set-url origin https://x-access-token:${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}@github.com/${{ github.repository }} git commit -am "Automated report" git push
For further examples of push to origin during an on: pull_request
workflow see this blog post, GitHub Actions: How to Automate Code Formatting in Pull Requests.
You can use secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN
as a password on your repository URL. So you might add this before your git push
line:
git remote set-url --push origin https://your_username:$GITHUB_TOKEN@github.com/your/repo
This assumes that you're already passing in the GITHUB_TOKEN secret as an environment variable to your script. If you aren't, then add:
env: GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
to your workflow step.