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Direct Backport Push: cherry-pick push to release branch does not trigger release-branch CI #4673

@Yicong-Huang

Description

@Yicong-Huang

Task Summary

`.github/workflows/direct-backport-push.yml` cherry-picks a squash-merged commit from `main` onto a release branch (e.g. `release/v1.1.0-incubating`) and pushes it. The push currently uses the default `GITHUB_TOKEN`, so the resulting push to the release branch does not retrigger workflows that run on push to release branches (post-merge CI on the release branch). The cherry-pick lands silently with no CI signal.

Why this matters

After enabling CI for release branches (#4594) and the post-merge backport flow (#4580), we still don't get CI runs on backport commits because `GITHUB_TOKEN`-authored pushes are explicitly excluded from triggering downstream workflows. Without CI on backport commits, regressions on the release branch can go unnoticed until a release-candidate build.

Proposed Next Step

Use a fine-grained PAT (repo secret `AUTO_MERGE_TOKEN`, same one we'll use for the AutoQueue stand-in workflow) for the `actions/checkout@v5` step in the `push-backports` job. Falls back to `GITHUB_TOKEN` when the secret is unset (keeps current behavior on forks).

Specifically, in `.github/workflows/direct-backport-push.yml` push-backports job:

```yaml

  • name: Checkout main
    uses: actions/checkout@v5
    with:
    fetch-depth: 0
    token: ${{ secrets.AUTO_MERGE_TOKEN || secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    ```

Priority

P2 – Medium

Task Type

  • DevOps / Deployment

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