Git Operations in GitHub actions

Git commands, such as checkout, add, create a branch, make a pull request in Github actions.

Checkout (Clone a repository)

The official https://github.com/actions/checkout action clones the repository to $GITHUB_WORKSPACE. By default it uses built-in GITHUB_TOKEN for authentication.

In most cases, this is what you need:

- uses: actions/checkout@latest

The checkout action also supports pushing a commit to the same repo.

on: push
jobs:
  git-push:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: |
          date > generated.txt
          git config user.name github-actions
          git config user.email github-actions@github.com
          git add .
          git commit -m "generated"
          git push

However, no further workflows will be triggered with the GITHUB_TOKEN. You will need the following steps to trigger workflows.

How to trigger further CI runs

You will need either a Personal access token (PAT) with repo scope access as an action secret.

- uses: actions/checkout@latest
  with:
	token: ${{ secrets.PAT }}

Or a pair of SSH keys; the public key is the deploy key with write access, while the private key is an action secret variable SSH_PRIVATE_KEY.

- uses: actions/checkout@latest
  with:
	ssh-key: ${{ secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}

Push changes back to GitHub

The following actions are more convenient for commit and push than the official checkout action.

• https://github.com/EndBug/add-and-commit
• https://github.com/stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action
• https://github.com/ad-m/github-push-action

Create a pull request

The https://github.com/peter-evans/create-pull-request action will commit all files into a new branch and make a pull request to the target (default main) branch.

- name: Create Pull Request
  uses: peter-evans/create-pull-request@v6
  with:
  # token: ${{ secrets.PAT }} # A PAT is required for triggering pull request workflows
    token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}  # This will not trigger further workflows

Merge pull requests

• Kodiak Bot : automatic merge PRs based on the issue label. (by default automerge). See also auto-deps-update.
• Run gh pr merge --merge --auto $PR_NUMBER in the workflow.
• https://github.com/peter-evans/enable-pull-request-automerge : A GitHub action to enable auto-merge on a pull request.