Get pull request number from action

[estensen]

I'm trying to create an action that is triggered on a PR and tags a specified reviewer. For that I'm creating an action which uses the GitHub API to create a review request. To create this request I need the pull request number. The action is triggered by a PR, but I can't find the pull request number in the action logs.

[peter-evans]

You can extract the PR number from the environment variable GITHUB_REF. For on: pull_request workflows GITHUB_REF takes the format refs/pull/:prNumber/merge.

ref: https://help.github.com/en/github/automating-your-workflow-with-github-actions/events-that-trigger-workflows#pull-request-event-pull_request

[estensen]

Thanks! I also found this:
pull_number=$(jq --raw-output .pull_request.number "$GITHUB_EVENT_PATH")

[n1ru4l]

Javascript version

"use strict";

const parsePullRequestId = githubRef => {
  const result = /refs\/pull\/(\d+)\/merge/g.exec(githubRef);
  if (!result) throw new Error("Reference not found.");
  const [, pullRequestId] = result;
  return pullRequestId;
};

const main = async () => {
  const pullRequestId = parsePullRequestId(process.env.GITHUB_REF);
};

main().catch(err => {
  console.error(err);
  process.exitCode = 1;
});

[littlebtc]

Today I found that the PR number will be missing if you re-run the job for on: pull_request workflow. The only reliable way to get it is through $GITHUB_EVENT_PATH.

const fs = require('fs')
const ev = JSON.parse(
  fs.readFileSync(process.env.GITHUB_EVENT_PATH, 'utf8')
)
const prNum = ev.pull_request.number

I think it is kind of a bug of GitHub Actions. 😭

[jpfeuffer]

I also think this is an important feature and it is a shame that this issue is closed "since you can hack your way around it". :(

[salvamomo]

In case this is still useful to anybody, a simple shell solution:

PR_NUMBER=$(echo $GITHUB_REF | awk 'BEGIN { FS = "/" } ; { print $3 }')

[leeyspaul]

Did anyone attempt to get the $GITHUB_REF but have a return with no PR number in the output? For example, my output is something like refs/head/master but has no pull number. Would love to see if anyone had a solution for this.

[leeyspaul]

Did anyone attempt to get the $GITHUB_REF but have a return with no PR number in the output? For example, my output is something like refs/head/master but has no pull number. Would love to see if anyone had a solution for this.

Replying to myself, I didn't run actions/checkout before ${{github.event.issue.number}}!

[hunkim]

Is this problem fixed?

[astamato]

As I understood from the above, because there are several workarounds it's closed with no official solution.

[Bowenislandsong]

PR=$(IFS='/' read -r -a REF <<< "$GITHUB_REF" && echo ${REF[2]})

[kirosc]

Did anyone attempt to get the $GITHUB_REF but have a return with no PR number in the output? For example, my output is something like refs/head/master but has no pull number. Would love to see if anyone had a solution for this.

Because it's not the first pull request. Instead, it's a push event.
GitHub should add the PR number to the environment variable.

[leeyspaul]

@kirosc I wrote a small post on retrieving the pull number based on an issue event.

If you use ${{github.event.number}} you will get the PR number on pull request event.
If you use ${{github.event.issue.number}} you will get the PR number on any issue event e.g. updates.

Not sure if that helps

[dgroup]

One more way from stackoverflow: https://stackoverflow.com/a/69936361/6916890

 - name: Get Pull Request Number
   id: pr
   run: echo "::set-output name=pull_request_number::$(gh pr view --json number -q .number || echo "")"
   env:
     GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

and usage ${{ steps.pr.outputs.pull_request_number }}.

[ar-mohammed]

i have run the action/checkout but still i am not getting PR no

[polarathene]

@ar-mohammed it is available via the github.event context object, provided your workflow has been triggered by a pull_request event. Just use ${{ github.event.pull_request.number }} to retrieve it then.

---

If the workflow is triggered by a different event, then you can use the gh CLI tool to make a query as was shown above. When you don't know what PR number/url/branch to reference, the default is to return PR data for the current checked out branch.

That is what the above example is doing, followed by requesting the JSON field number and jq (-q) expression to return that number, otherwise an empty string.

[ygots]

If there are still searchers passing by, https://github.com/marketplace/actions/find-current-pull-request solved this problem for me.

It looks like it doesn't support comment-triggering events - I found this jwalton/gh-find-current-pr#23

[RDhar]

Hi @estensen,

To expand on @polarathene's answer about the API endpoint, here's a working snippet to get the issue number in both push and pull_request events within a GitHub Actions workflow by leveraging actions/github-script:

steps:
  - uses: actions/github-script@v6
    id: get_issue_number
    with:
      script: |
        if (context.issue.number) {
          // Return issue number if present
          return context.issue.number;
        } else {
          // Otherwise return issue number from commit
          return (
            await github.rest.repos.listPullRequestsAssociatedWithCommit({
              commit_sha: context.sha,
              owner: context.repo.owner,
              repo: context.repo.repo,
            })
          ).data[0].number;
        }
      result-encoding: string
  - name: Issue number
    run: echo '${{steps.get_issue_number.outputs.result}}'

The script queries the list labels for an issue REST API endpoint via octokit/rest.js client.

[mgaitan]

I've created an action that works for both pull_request and merge_group events.
Check mgaitan/gha-get-pr-number

[sumanth-lingappa]

The below worked for me:
peter-evans/create-or-update-comment#104 (comment)

[chriscz]

PR_NUMBER=$(echo $GITHUB_REF | awk 'BEGIN { FS = "/" } ; { print $3 }')

This is problematic because the refs you see in $GITHUB_REF tend to have 3 or more path components:

• For a push to the main branch: refs/heads/main
• For a push to the develop branch: refs/heads/develop
• For a tag: refs/tags/<tag-name>
• For a pull request: refs/pull/<pr-number>/merge

I want this pattern to only match the last case. So I added a pattern to the last rule:

PR_NUMBER=$(echo $GITHUB_REF | awk 'BEGIN { FS = "/" } ; /^refs\/pull/ { print $3 }')