Checkout Specific Folder/Directory/Path within GitHub Repository

[NickLiffen]

👋

Let's say I have repositoryA that has a high-level folder structure of:

- .github
- actions
- docs
- tests
readme.md
...

I also have a repository called repositoryB. From repositoryB, I am trying to checkout repositoryA. I have that working by something like the below:

      - name: Checkout Central Actions Repo
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          repository: ${{org}}/repositoryA
          ref: main
          token: ${{ secrets.token }}
          persist-credentials: false
          path: ./github-app-jwt-action

This works and checks out the whole repository. I am looking for a way to only checkout the actions
directory from repositoryA, vs the whole repository. I was thinking something like this would work:

      - name: Checkout Central Actions Repo
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          repository: ${{org}}/repositoryA
          ref: main
          token: ${{ secrets.token }}
          persist-credentials: false
          path: ./github-app-jwt-action
          dir: ./actions

This obviously isn't possible, but I wondered if there was another way around this?

[rexwangcc]

Having a similar use case, I noticed that there's a way to achieve that using git commands, as explained here, but it would be great if there's an Actions solution too :-)

[gnrlbzik]

There is this github action i found: https://github.com/marketplace/actions/checkout-files

[andyslack]

We are moving towards one repo per client which holds both their backend and frontend to save having multiple repos per client. This feature would be really helpful for me.

[LeviPesin]

Isn't this supported since v3.5.3 by using sparse-checkout?

[andyslack]

Isn't this supported since v3.5.3 by using sparse-checkout?

Works like a dream 👍

[danial-k]

Example with sparse checkout (would be nice if this was handled with a shortcut per #1430 ):

jobs:
  eas-preview:
    name: EAS preview
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      # Checkout project code
      # Use sparse checkout to only select files in mobile app directory
      # Turning off cone mode ensures that files in the project root are not included during checkout
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          sparse-checkout: 'frontend/mobile'
          sparse-checkout-cone-mode: false

      # This step is needed because expo-github-action does not support paths.
      # Therefore all mobile app assets should be moved to the project root.
      - name: Move mobile app files to root
        run: |
          ls -lah
          shopt -s dotglob
          mv frontend/mobile/* .
          rm -rf frontend
          ls -lah

[ashishjullia]

Were you able to find a cleaner way? @danial-k

[rsmartins78]

This is working for me

        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          repository: user/repo_name
          path: 'destination_folder'
          sparse-checkout: 'folder_to_clone_from_$repository'
          sparse-checkout-cone-mode: false
          token: ${{ secrets.PAT_REPO_TOKEN }} ```