update-and-push-action

Github action updating target repository with files from local directory.

Inspired by github-action-push-to-another-repository

This action expects the source tree (provider of the source_directory) to be checked out in the workspace.

The action performs following steps:

1. checks out the target_branch from the target_repository into temporary directory
2. if no transfer_map is provided, copies all files and directories from source_directory to target_directory using rsync. The rsync command deletes extraneous files and directories from the destination directory unless they are matched by an entry in the exclude_filter file. The .git directory is always excluded.
3. if transfer_map is specified, copies all files and directories from src to the dst for every entry in the transfer_map file. Transfer map syntax is described bellow. Source paths in the transfer_map are relative to the source_directory. Destination paths are relative to the target_directory.
4. commits modified tree to the target_branch of the target_repository
5. pushes commits to the target_repository

If the create_target_branch argument is set to True the target_branch is created in the target_repository if it does not exist. The commit_message argument allows to provide a template for the commite message to the target repository. The ${ORIGIN_COMMIT} variable is expanded to reference to the commit to the origin repo which has triggered the action. Any other environment variables provided to the Github action are expanded in the commit_message template.

Transfer map syntax

The tranfer_map files allows to describe simple transformations of source tree before commiting it to target_repository. Each line in the file is expected to contain 2 strings source and destination separated by whitespace. Lines starting with # are treated as comments and ignored as well as any trailing text after after #. source nor destination must not contain ... Extracted source and destination are directly passed as arguments to rsync

Examples of transfer map:

• simplest possible

# copy entire source tree to target
. .

• copy content of directory my_code to new_code

my_code/ new_code # this is comment

# copy single file to different location
docs/README.md new_code/README.new.md

• copy complete source tree to import/src

   # also treated as a comment
. import/src

Input arguments

Name	Required	Default	Purpose
transfer_map	No		Name of tranfer map file
source_directory	No	.	Directory providing content for the update
target_user	No	(owner of the source repository)	Name of the username/organization owning the target repository
target_repository	Yes		Name of the target repository. It must exist
commit_email	Yes		E-mail address to use in the commit to the target repository
target_server	No	(same as source repo)	Target git server
target_branch	No	main	Target branch name
commit_message	No	Update from ${ORIGIN_COMMIT}	Commit message template
target_directory	No	(root of repository)	Directory in the target repository to update
create_target_branch	No	False	Boolean indicating whether to create the target branch if it does not exist
exclude_filter	No		Name of file containing rsync-style exlude list

Authentication and permissions

Access to the target repository may be authenticated either by using ${SSH_DEPLOY_KEY} or ${API_GITHUB_TOKEN} from the environment. API_GITHUB_TOKEN is preferred if available. The identity associated with the secret must have permissions for the target repository:

• Read access to metadata
• Read and Write access to code and pull requests

Usage examples

Mirror current branch in the source repository to the target repo

name: Update target repo

on:
  push:

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    # Allow the job to fetch a GitHub ID token
    permissions:
      contents: 'read'
      id-token: 'write'

    steps:
      - name: Checkout sources
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Update target repo
        uses: kentik/update-and-push-action@main
        env:
          API_TOKEN_GITHUB: ${{ secrets.TARGET_ACCESS_TOKEN }}
        with:
          target-user: kentik
          target-repository: target
          commit-email: [email protected]
          target-branch: ${{ github.ref_name }}
          create-target-branch: true
          exclude-filter: .github/workflow/update_exclude_filter

Content of .github/workflow/update_exclude_filter:

/.github/

Update the main branch in the target repository with files in a export directory while preserving README.md and .github

name: Update target repo

on:
  push:

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    # Allow the job to fetch a GitHub ID token
    permissions:
      contents: 'read'
      id-token: 'write'

    steps:
      - name: Checkout sources
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Update target repo
        uses: kentik/update-and-push-action@main
        env:
          API_TOKEN_GITHUB: ${{ secrets.TARGET_ACCESS_TOKEN }}
        with:
          source-directory: export
          target-user: kentik
          target-repository: target
          commit-email: [email protected]
          exclude-filter: .github/workflow/update_exclude_filter

Content of .github/workflow/update_exclude_filter:

/.github/
/README.md