Github Action commit-status-updater

Overview

A simple Github Action that allows us to update the status of a commit.

GitHub does not update the status of a commit when running workflow and therefore tools that rely on the context/status of a given commit are not compatible with it.

Currently the action supports pull_request and push events:

• When the event is pull_request, the action will set the status to the last commit in the pull request at the moment the workflow was triggered.
• When the event is push, the action will set the status to the last commit pushed at the moment the workflow was triggered.

Input Parameters

Name	Required	Description	Default	Accepted values
token	✔️	Auth token used to add status commits	${ github.token }	^[0-9a-f]{40}$
name	✔️	Name of the status check to add to the commit	GithubActions - ${GITHUB_WORKFLOW}	Any string
status	✔️	Commit or job status, based on this the action will set the correct status in the commit. See below for details.	pending	error, failure, pending, success and cancelled
url		URL for the status check	""	Any string
description		Description for the status check	""	Any string

status

If set to pending it will set status commit pending.

If set to failure or cancelled it will set status commit failure.

If set to success it will set status commit success.

If set to error it will set status commit error.

Input Parameters specific to pull_request event

These parameters are all optional and are used only for pull requests

Name	Description
ignoreForks	Default is true. If the pull request is from a fork the action won't add a status by default. This is because the action won't have a token with permissions to add the status to the commit. You can disable this, but then you'll have to provide a token with enough permissions to add status to the commits in the forks!
addHoldComment	Default is false. If true the action will add a comment to the pull request. This is useful if you use prow, since prow won't detect the GitHub actions, so you can use /hold and /hold cancel to avoid merging the PR before you want. Important: this will be disabled for forks if ignoreForks is set to true, this is because the default GitHub token won't have permissions to add comments if your PR comes from a fork.
pendingComment	Default is /hold. This is the message to add to the pull request when the status is pending.
successComment	Default is /hold cancel. This is the message to add to the pull request when the status is success.
failComment	Default is /hold. This is the message to add to the pull request when the status is failure, error or cancelled.

Workflow permissions

By default, if we don't add permissions to the workflow or the job, the action will be able to set the status commit and add comments. But if we set any permissions for the workflow/job, then we need to be sure we provide the correct ones for the action:

• If we just want to set the status commit we need to be sure the job (or the whole workflow) has the permission: statuses: write
• If we want to add a comment we need to be sure the job (or the whole workflow) has the permissions: pull-requests: write

Examples

Action sets push commit to pending status

name: Test

on: [push]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - uses: ouzi-dev/commit-status-updater@v2

Action sets push commit to pending status with specific permissions

name: Test

on: [push]

permissions: 
  statuses: write

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - uses: ouzi-dev/commit-status-updater@v2

Action sets push commit to pending status with custom name

name: Test

on: [push]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - uses: ouzi-dev/commit-status-updater@v2
      with:
        name: "name of my status check"

Action sets push commit to pending status on start, and updates check at the end of the workflow

name: Test

on: [push]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - uses: ouzi-dev/commit-status-updater@v2
    - if: always()
      uses: ouzi-dev/commit-status-updater@v2
      with:
        status: "${{ job.status }}"

Action sets pull request commit to pending status without comment

name: Test

on: [pull_request]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - uses: ouzi-dev/commit-status-updater@v2

Action sets pull request commit to error status without comment

name: Test

on: [pull_request]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - uses: ouzi-dev/commit-status-updater@v2
      with:
        status: "error"

Action sets pull request commit to pending status with comment, and updates check and adds comment at the end of the workflow

name: Test

on: [pull_request]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - uses: ouzi-dev/commit-status-updater@v2
      with:
        addHoldComment: "true"
    - if: always()
      uses: ouzi-dev/commit-status-updater@v2
      with:
        addHoldComment: "true"
        status: "${{ job.status }}"

Action sets pull request commit to pending status with comment, and updates check and adds comment at the end of the workflow with specific permissions

name: Test

on: [pull_request]

permissions: 
  statuses: write
  pull-requests: write

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - uses: ouzi-dev/commit-status-updater@v2
      with:
        addHoldComment: "true"
    - if: always()
      uses: ouzi-dev/commit-status-updater@v2
      with:
        addHoldComment: "true"
        status: "${{ job.status }}"

Action with custom hold comments

name: Test

on: [pull_request]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - uses: ouzi-dev/commit-status-updater@v2
      with:
        status: "pending"
        addHoldComment: "true"
        pendingComment: "action pending!"
        successComment: "action success!"
        failComment: "action failed!"

Action no comments, set commit to "error" status and set url, description and specific name

name: Test

on: [pull_request]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - uses: ouzi-dev/commit-status-updater@v2
      with:
        status: "error"
        url: http://myurl.io/
        description: "this is my status check"
        name: "name of my status check"

Action with specific token and setting status check in commits in forks

name: Test

on: [pull_request]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - uses: ouzi-dev/commit-status-updater@v2
      with:
        token: "my_custom_token"
        ignoreForks: "false"

Integration with Prow

An example is Prow which uses the Github Status API to read the status of a given commit. Using this actions you can tell tide to not skip optional contexts and effectively wait for a GitHub Workflow to pass before merging.

Example with Tide

tide:
  context_options:
    # Treat unknown contexts as required
    skip-unknown-contexts: false

Development

Important: Before pushing your changes run make release to generate all the correct files and clean stuff, etc...