git-auto-commit Action

The GitHub Action for committing files for the 80% use case.

A GitHub Action to detect changed files during a Workflow run and to commit and push them back to the GitHub repository. By default, the commit is made in the name of "GitHub Actions" and co-authored by the user that made the last commit.

If you want to learn more how this Action works under the hood, check out this article by Michael Heap.

Usage

Adding git-auto-commit to your Workflow only takes a couple lines of code.

1. Set the contents-permission of the default GITHUB_TOKEN to true. (Required to push new commits to the repository)
2. Add the following step at the end of your job, after other steps that might add or change files.

- uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v4

Your Workflow should look similar to this example.

name: Format

on: push

jobs:
  format-code:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    permissions:
      # Give the default GITHUB_TOKEN write permission to commit and push the
      # added or changed files to the repository.
      contents: write

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3

      # Other steps that change files in the repository

      # Commit all changed files back to the repository
      - uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v4

The following is an extended example with all available options.

- uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v4
  with:
    # Optional. Commit message for the created commit.
    # Defaults to "Apply automatic changes"
    commit_message: Automated Change

    # Optional. Local and remote branch name where commit is going to be pushed
    #  to. Defaults to the current branch.
    #  You might need to set `create_branch: true` if the branch does not exist.
    branch: feature-123

    # Optional. Options used by `git-commit`.
    # See https://git-scm.com/docs/git-commit#_options
    commit_options: '--no-verify --signoff'

    # Optional glob pattern of files which should be added to the commit
    # Defaults to all (.)
    # See the `pathspec`-documentation for git
    # - https://git-scm.com/docs/git-add#Documentation/git-add.txt-ltpathspecgt82308203
    # - https://git-scm.com/docs/gitglossary#Documentation/gitglossary.txt-aiddefpathspecapathspec
    file_pattern: '*.php src/*.js tests/*.js'

    # Optional. Local file path to the repository.
    # Defaults to the root of the repository.
    repository: .

    # Optional commit user and author settings
    commit_user_name: My GitHub Actions Bot # defaults to "github-actions[bot]"
    commit_user_email: [email protected] # defaults to "41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com"
    commit_author: Author <[email protected]> # defaults to author of the commit that triggered the run

    # Optional. Tag name being created in the local repository and 
    # pushed to remote repository and defined branch.
    tagging_message: 'v1.0.0'

    # Optional. Option used by `git-status` to determine if the repository is 
    # dirty. See https://git-scm.com/docs/git-status#_options
    status_options: '--untracked-files=no'

    # Optional. Options used by `git-add`.
    # See https://git-scm.com/docs/git-add#_options
    add_options: '-u'

    # Optional. Options used by `git-push`.
    # See https://git-scm.com/docs/git-push#_options
    push_options: '--force'
    
    # Optional. Disable dirty check and always try to create a commit and push
    skip_dirty_check: true    
    
    # Optional. Skip internal call to `git fetch`
    skip_fetch: true    
    
    # Optional. Skip internal call to `git checkout`
    skip_checkout: true

    # Optional. Prevents the shell from expanding filenames. 
    # Details: https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Filename-Expansion.html
    disable_globbing: true

    # Optional. Create given branch name in local and remote repository.
    create_branch: true

Please note that the Action depends on bash. If you're using the Action in a job in combination with a custom Docker container, make sure that bash is installed.

Example Workflow

In this example, we're running php-cs-fixer in a PHP project to fix the codestyle automatically, then commit possible changed files back to the repository.

Note that we explicitly specify ${{ github.head_ref }} in the checkout Action. This is required in order to work with the pull_request event (or any other non-push event).

name: php-cs-fixer

on:
  pull_request:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  php-cs-fixer:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    permissions:
      # Give the default GITHUB_TOKEN write permission to commit and push the changed files back to the repository.
      contents: write

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      with:
        ref: ${{ github.head_ref }}

    - name: Run php-cs-fixer
      uses: docker://oskarstark/php-cs-fixer-ga

    - uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v4
      with:
        commit_message: Apply php-cs-fixer changes

Inputs

Checkout action.yml for a full list of supported inputs.

Outputs

You can use these outputs to trigger other Actions in your Workflow run based on the result of git-auto-commit-action.

• changes_detected: Returns either "true" or "false" if the repository was dirty and files have changed.
• commit_hash: Returns the full hash of the commit if one was created.

Example

  - name: "Run if changes have been detected"
    if: steps.auto-commit-action.outputs.changes_detected == 'true'
    run: echo "Changes!"

  - name: "Run if no changes have been detected"
    if: steps.auto-commit-action.outputs.changes_detected == 'false'
    run: echo "No Changes!"

Limitations & Gotchas

The goal of this Action is to be "the Action for committing files for the 80% use case". Therefore, you might run into issues if your Workflow falls into the not supported 20% portion.

The following is a list of edge cases the Action knowingly does not support:

No git pull when the repository is out of date with remote. The Action will not do a git pull before doing the git push. You are responsible for keeping the repository up to date in your Workflow runs.

No support for running the Action in build matrices. If your Workflow is using build matrices, and you want that each job commits and pushes files to the remote, you will run into the issue, that the repository in the workflow will become out of date. As the Action will not do a git pull for you, you have to do that yourself.

No support for git rebase or git merge. There are many strategies on how to integrate remote upstream changes to a local repository. git-auto-commit does not want to be responsible for doing that.

No support for detecting line break changes between CR (Carriage Return) and LF (Line Feed). This is a low level issue, you have to resolve differently in your project. Sorry.

If this Action doesn't work for your workflow, check out EndBug/add-and-commit.

Checkout the correct branch

You must use action/checkout@v2 or later versions to check out the repository. In non-push events, such as pull_request, make sure to specify the ref to check out:

- uses: actions/checkout@v3
  with:
    ref: ${{ github.head_ref }}

Do this to avoid checking out the repository in a detached state.

Commits made by this Action do not trigger new Workflow runs

The resulting commit will not trigger another GitHub Actions Workflow run. This is due to limitations set by GitHub.

When you use the repository's GITHUB_TOKEN to perform tasks on behalf of the GitHub Actions app, events triggered by the GITHUB_TOKEN will not create a new workflow run. This prevents you from accidentally creating recursive workflow runs.

You can change this by creating a new Personal Access Token (PAT), storing the token as a secret in your repository and then passing the new token to the actions/checkout Action step.

- uses: actions/checkout@v3
  with:
    token: ${{ secrets.PAT }}

If you create a personal access token, apply the repo and workflow scopes.

If you work in an organization and don't want to create a PAT from your personal account, we recommend using a robot account for the token.

Change to file is not detected

Does your workflow change a file, but "git-auto-commit" does not detect the change? Check the .gitignore that applies to the respective file. You might have accidentally marked the file to be ignored by git.

Advanced Uses

Multiline Commit Messages

If your commit message should span multiple lines, you have to create a separate step to generate the string.

The example below can be used as a starting point to generate a multiline commit meesage. Learn more how multiline strings in GitHub Actions work in the GitHub documentation.

    # Building a multiline commit message
    # Adjust to your liking
    - run: echo "Commit Message 1" >> commitmessage.txt
    - run: echo "Commit Message 2" >> commitmessage.txt
    - run: echo "Commit Message 3" >> commitmessage.txt

    # Create a multiline string to be used by the git-auto-commit Action
    - name: Set commit message
      id: commit_message_step
      run: |
        echo 'commit_message<<EOF' >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
        cat commitmessage.txt >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
        echo 'EOF' >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT

    # Quick and dirty step to get rid of the temporary file holding the commit message
    - run: rm -rf commitmessage.txt

    - uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v4
      id: commit
      with:
        commit_message: ${{ steps.commit_message_step.outputs.commit_message }}

Signing Commits & Other Git Command Line Options

Using command lines options needs to be done manually for each workflow which you require the option enabled. So for example signing commits requires you to import the gpg signature each and every time. The following list of actions are worth checking out if you need to automate these tasks regularly.

• Import GPG Signature (Suggested by TGTGamer)

Push to forks from private repositories

By default, GitHub Actions doesn't run Workflows on forks from private repositories. To enable Actions for private repositories enable "Run workflows from pull requests" in your repository settings.

See this announcement from GitHub or the GitHub docs for details.

Use in forks from public repositories

name: Format PHP

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  pull_request_target:

jobs:
  php-cs-fixer:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: write

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      with:
        # Checkout the fork/head-repository and push changes to the fork.
        # If you skip this, the base repository will be checked out and changes
        # will be committed to the base repository!
        repository: ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.repo.full_name }}

        # Checkout the branch made in the fork. Will automatically push changes
        # back to this branch.
        ref: ${{ github.head_ref }}

    - name: Run php-cs-fixer
      uses: docker://oskarstark/php-cs-fixer-ga

    - uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v4

name: Format PHP

on: [push, pull_request, pull_request_target]

jobs:
  php-cs-fixer:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3

    - name: Run php-cs-fixer
      uses: docker://oskarstark/php-cs-fixer-ga

    - uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v4
      with:
        commit_message: Apply php-cs-fixer changes

Using --amend and --no-edit as commit options

- uses: actions/checkout@master
  with:
    # Fetch the last 2 commits instead of just 1. (Fetching just 1 commit would overwrite the whole history)
    fetch-depth: 2

# Other steps in your workflow to trigger a changed file

- name: Get last commit message
  id: last-commit-message
  run: |
    echo "msg=$(git log -1 --pretty=%s)" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT

- uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v4
  with:
    commit_message: ${{ steps.last-commit-message.outputs.msg }}
    commit_options: '--amend --no-edit'
    push_options: '--force'
    skip_fetch: true

Troubleshooting

Action does not push commit to repository

Make sure to checkout the correct branch.

Action does not push commit to repository: Authentication Issue

If your Workflow can't push the commit to the repository because of authentication issues, please update your Workflow configuration and usage of actions/checkout.

Updating the token value with a Personal Access Token should fix your issues.

Push to protected branches

If your repository uses protected branches you have to make some changes to your Workflow for the Action to work properly: You need a Personal Access Token and you either have to allow force pushes or the Personal Access Token needs to belong to an Administrator.

First, you have to create a new Personal Access Token (PAT), store the token as a secret in your repository and pass the new token to the actions/checkout Action step.

- uses: actions/checkout@v3
  with:
    token: ${{ secrets.PAT }}

You can learn more about Personal Access Token in the GitHub documentation.

If you go the "force pushes" route, you have to enable force pushes to a protected branch (See documentation) and update your Workflow to use force push like this.

    - uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v4
      with:
        commit_message: Apply php-cs-fixer changes
        push_options: --force

No new workflows are triggered by the commit of this action

This is due to limitations set up by GitHub, commits made by this Action do not trigger new Workflow runs.

Pathspec 'x' did not match any files

If you're using the Action with a custom file_pattern and the Action throws a fatal error with the message "Pathspec 'file-pattern' did not match any files", the problem is probably that no file for the pattern exists in the repository.

file_pattern is used both for git-status and git-add in this Action. git-add will throw a fatal error, if for example, you use a file pattern like *.js *.ts but no *.ts files exist in your projects' repository.

See Issue #227 for details.

Custom file_pattern, changed files but seeing "Working tree clean. Nothing to commit." in the logs

If you're using a custom file_pattern and the Action does not detect the changes made in your worfklow, you're probably running into a globbing issue.

Let's imagine you use file_pattern: '*.md' to detect and commit changes to all Markdown files in your repository. If your Workflow now only updates .md-files in a subdirectory, but you have an untouched .md-file in the root of the repository, the git-auto-commit Action will display "Working tree clean. Nothing to commit." in the Workflow log.

This is due to the fact, that the *.md-glob is expanded before sending it to git-status. git-status will receive the filename of your untouched .md-file in the root of the repository and won't detect any changes; and therefore the Action does nothing.

To fix this add disable_globbing: true to your Workflow.

- uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v4
  with:
    file_pattern: '*.md'
    disable_globbing: true

See Issue #239 for details.

Running the tests

The Action has tests written in bats. Before you can run the test suite locally, you have to install the dependencies with npm or yarn.

npm install
yarn

You can run the test suite with npm or yarn.

npm run test
yarn test

Versioning

We use SemVer for versioning. For the versions available, see the tags on this repository.

We also provide major version tags to make it easier to always use the latest release of a major version. For example, you can use stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v4 to always use the latest release of the current major version. (More information about this here.)

Credits

• Stefan Zweifel
• All Contributors

This Action has been inspired and adapted from the auto-commit-Action of the Canadian Digital Service and this commit-Action by Eric Johnson.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.