Create or Update Pull Request action

A GitHub Action to create or update a pull request based on local changes

Usage

Minimal workflow example

name: Nightly update
on:
  schedule:
    # https://crontab.guru/every-night-at-midnight
    - cron: "0 0 * * *"

jobs:
  update_routes:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          persist-credentials: false
      - run: "date > datetime.txt" # create or update a test.txt file
      - uses: gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action@v1
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

persist-credentials: false is crucial otherwise Git push is performed with github.token and not the token you configure using the env: GITHUB_TOKEN.

Customizations

uses: gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action@v1
env:
  GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
with:
  title: "My pull request title"
  body: "My pull request body"
  branch: "my-pull-request-base-branch"
  path: "lib/"
  commit-message: "My commit message for uncommitted changes in lib/ folder"
  author: "Lorem J. Ipsum <[email protected]>"
  labels: label1, label2
  assignees: user1, user2
  reviewers: user1, user2
  team_reviewers: team1, team2
  auto-merge: squash
  update-pull-request-title-and-body: false

Note: auto-merge is optional. It can be set to merge, squash, or rebase. If auto-merging is disabled in the repository, a warning will be logged, but the action will not fail.

To create multiple commits for different paths, use the action multiple times

- uses: gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action@v1
  env:
    GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
  with:
    title: "My pull request title"
    body: "My pull request body"
    branch: "my-pull-request-base-branch"
    author: "Lorem J. Ipsum <[email protected]>"
    path: "cache/"
    commit-message: "build: cache"
- uses: gr2m/create-or-update-pull-request-action@v1
  env:
    GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
  with:
    branch: "my-pull-request-base-branch"
    author: "Lorem J. Ipsum <[email protected]>"
    path: "data/"
    commit-message: "feat: data updated"

Debugging

To see additional debug logs, create a secret with the name: ACTIONS_STEP_DEBUG and value true. There is no need to pass it as env to steps, it will work globally.

How it works

The actions checks for local changes which can be

1. Uncommitted changes such as created, updated or deleted files as shown by git status
2. Local commits

If there are none, the action concludes with the "neutral" status

If there are changes, it does the following

1. Sets user.name and user.email with git config --global based on the author input, unless it has been already set before.
2. Looks for local changes with git status.
3. Adds a new commit using the commit-message input if there are uncommitted changes.
4. Pushes the local changes to remote using the branch configured in the branch input.
5. Creates a pull request using the title and body inputs. If a pull request exists for the branch, it's checked out locally, rebased with -XTheirs and pushed with --force to update the pull request with the new changes.

The actions outputs following properties:

• pull-request-number - number of created/updated PR. Not set if result is unchanged.
• result - created, updated or unchanged based if the PR was created, updated or if there were no local changes.

The action is written in JavaScript. Learn how to create your own.

Who is using it

• @octokit/routes
• @octokit/rest.js
• @sinchang/cn-starbucks-stores-data
• ergebnis/composer-normalize
• nodejs/node
• dreua/flatpak-module-qpdf-pikepdf: Flatpak modules for qpdf and pikepdf

Please send a pull request to add yours :)

Credit

Inspired by the Create Pull Request action by @peter-evans

License

MIT