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.
All the provided answers are correct. But I would like to add a bit more to these answers. There can be situations where there are no changes in files. So in that situation, when trying to execute the git commit
command it returns an error that fails the GitHub workflow (failed workflows block the PR merge). So we have to check whether there are any changes in files before commit.
name: Config Generatoron: pull_request: branches: [ main ]jobs: config-generator: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - uses: actions/checkout@v2 with: ref: ${{ github.head_ref }} - name: Install jsonnet run: sudo apt install -y jsonnet - name: Generate probe configs run: python3 generate-configs.py - name: Check for modified files id: git-check run: echo ::set-output name=modified::$(if [ -n "$(git status --porcelain)" ]; then echo "true"; else echo "false"; fi) - name: Update changes in GitHub repository if: steps.git-check.outputs.modified == 'true' run: | git config --global user.name 'Your Name' git config --global user.email 'Your Email for GitHub' git add -A git commit -m '[automated commit] add configs generated using jsonnet & GitHub workflow' git push
The above workflow is an example for creating configuration files using jsonnet and GitHub workflow. It first installs jsonnet and runs a python script that creates the config files using jsonnet templates. As mentioned above there can be situation where there are no file changes. So it uses git status
command to check whether there are any file changes. (Instead of git status
, git diff
can also be used. But it wont show untracked files). Rest of the git commands run only if there are file changes.
Also note that I had to use ref: ${{ github.head_ref }}
to checkout to source branch even though I used checkout@v2
(still detached head problem exists in my case)