Add GitHub Actions workflow to automate cherry-pick hotfix PRs by paulmedynski · Pull Request #4106 · dotnet/SqlClient

paulmedynski · 2026-03-31T13:18:39Z

Description

Adds a new GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/cherry-pick-hotfix.yml) that automates cherry-picking merged PRs into release branches when a "Hotfix <version>" label is present.

How it works:

When a PR is merged to the default branch with a "Hotfix X.Y.Z" label (e.g. "Hotfix 7.0.1"), the workflow automatically cherry-picks the merge commit into release/<version>.
Labels can be added before or after merge — the workflow triggers on both closed and labeled events.
Multiple "Hotfix" labels on a single PR are supported; each produces an independent cherry-pick PR targeting its corresponding release branch.
If the cherry-pick succeeds, a PR is created with the title [<version> Cherry-pick] <original title>.
If there are merge conflicts, a placeholder PR with an empty commit is created titled [<version> Cherry-pick - CONFLICTS] <original title>, with manual resolution instructions in the body.

Engineering processes (CI, pipelines):

Uses a matrix strategy to fan out one job per detected hotfix version.
Avoids script injection by passing label names through environment variables rather than inline expressions.
Cherry-pick PRs are automatically assigned to the corresponding milestone.

Issues

No linked issue — this is a new engineering workflow to streamline the hotfix process.

Testing

Manual testing: The workflow logic (label extraction, branch naming, cherry-pick commands) was reviewed for correctness.
No automated tests: GitHub Actions workflows are validated by GitHub's own schema checks at push time and exercised in real PR scenarios. There is no unit test framework for workflow files in this repository. We do employ some Bash unit tests to confirm basic script functionality, but no integration tests exist for the GitHub actions themselves.
Justification for gap: Workflow files run in the GitHub Actions environment and cannot be meaningfully unit-tested locally. The workflow should be validated end-to-end by merging a test PR with a "Hotfix" label against a test release branch.

Guidelines

Please review the contribution guidelines before submitting a pull request:

Copilot

Pull request overview

Adds a new GitHub Actions workflow to automate creating cherry-pick PRs from merged hotfix PRs onto corresponding release/* branches based on Hotfix <version> labels, streamlining the hotfix backport process.

Changes:

Introduces .github/workflows/cherry-pick-hotfix.yml triggered by pull_request closed and labeled events.
Detects hotfix versions from PR labels and fans out a matrix job (one cherry-pick per version).
Creates either a normal cherry-pick PR or a “CONFLICTS” placeholder PR with manual resolution instructions.

.github/workflows/cherry-pick-hotfix.yml

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 3 out of 3 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

.github/workflows/cherry-pick-hotfix.yml

.github/workflows/codeql.yml

.github/copilot-instructions.md

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 8 out of 8 changed files in this pull request and generated 6 comments.

eng/pipelines/dotnet-sqlclient-ci-project-reference-pipeline.yml

eng/pipelines/dotnet-sqlclient-ci-package-reference-pipeline.yml

.github/workflows/cherry-pick-hotfix.yml

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 8 out of 8 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

.github/workflows/cherry-pick-hotfix.yml

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 13 out of 13 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

.github/scripts/cherry-pick-to-release.sh

codecov · 2026-03-31T20:46:33Z

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 66.48%. Comparing base (60d4b92) to head (f1925d1).
⚠️ Report is 16 commits behind head on main.

❗ There is a different number of reports uploaded between BASE (60d4b92) and HEAD (f1925d1). Click for more details.

HEAD has 1 upload less than BASE

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CI-SqlClient 1 0

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main    #4106      +/-   ##
==========================================
- Coverage   73.22%   66.48%   -6.75%     
==========================================
  Files         280      274       -6     
  Lines       43000    65782   +22782     
==========================================
+ Hits        31486    43732   +12246     
- Misses      11514    22050   +10536

Flag	Coverage Δ
CI-SqlClient	`?`
PR-SqlClient-Project	`66.48% <ø> (?)`

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Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 13 out of 13 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

.github/scripts/extract-hotfix-versions.sh

.github/scripts/tests/extract-hotfix-versions.bats

.github/scripts/tests/README.md

…Hotfix X.Y.Z" labels.

…aming - Switch from pull_request to pull_request_target so fork PRs have write permissions for push and PR creation. - Detect parent count before cherry-pick: only pass --mainline 1 for true merge commits (2+ parents), omit it for squash merges. - Parse major.minor from the Hotfix label version for the target release branch name (e.g. 'Hotfix 7.0.1' targets release/7.0), while preserving the full version in PR titles, milestones, and cherry-pick branch names.

…bel validation - Remove --count from git rev-list so parent detection works correctly for both merge and squash-merge commits - Use CHERRY_PICK_BRANCH variable in conflict resolution instructions instead of hardcoded branch prefix - Tighten Hotfix label regex to only accept X.Y.Z semver format

…estone lookup, MAINLINE_FLAG in body, CI indentation - Add default-branch guard to prevent recursive cherry-picks from release branches - For 'labeled' events, only process the newly added label; skip if cherry-pick branch or PR already exists - Look up milestone before creating PR; if missing, omit --milestone and add a note to the PR description - Build CHERRY_PICK_CMD conditionally so empty MAINLINE_FLAG doesn't produce trailing '' in conflict-resolution instructions - Fix CI pipeline branch list indentation under include:

Add a pre-check using 'git cherry' to determine if the merge commit's patch is already present on the target release branch. If so, the job exits cleanly with a notice instead of producing an empty commit or a misleading CONFLICTS PR.

Move inline shell scripts from cherry-pick-hotfix.yml into standalone files under .github/scripts/: - extract-hotfix-versions.sh: Parses 'Hotfix X.Y.Z' labels from PR metadata and emits a JSON version matrix for fan-out. - cherry-pick-to-release.sh: Cherry-picks a merge commit onto the corresponding release branch and opens a PR (or a CONFLICTS PR with manual resolution instructions). Both scripts include: - Full header documentation with overview, env vars, and examples - Runtime --help / -h support - Input validation with clear error messages - Comments on all non-obvious operations Add bats-core test suites under .github/scripts/tests/: - 18 tests for extract-hotfix-versions.sh (label parsing, edge cases, duplicate detection, event-type handling) - 15 tests for cherry-pick-to-release.sh (version derivation, already-applied detection, merge type handling, milestone lookup, conflict path) Also fixes a quoting bug in the MILESTONE_NOTE assignment that caused 'command not found' when the milestone didn't exist.

- Replace git ls-remote with gh api for branch existence check in extract-hotfix-versions.sh (detect-versions job has no checkout) - Put cherry-pick options (--mainline 1) before SHA operand - Fix conflict-resolution command to put options before SHA - Update bats test mocks to match new gh api usage

…ITORY validation - Replace duplicated --help heredocs with awk extraction of the header comment block in both scripts, eliminating content drift. - Add GITHUB_REPOSITORY to required env var validation in extract-hotfix-versions.sh (was used with set -u but not validated). - Pass --repo to 'gh pr list' so it works without a .git directory. - Set GITHUB_REPOSITORY in bats test setup() for deterministic runs. - Update test assertions to match uppercase header comment headings.

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 13 out of 13 changed files in this pull request and generated 5 comments.

.github/workflows/cherry-pick-hotfix.yml

.github/scripts/cherry-pick-to-release.sh

.github/scripts/tests/README.md

.github/scripts/extract-hotfix-versions.sh

- Add checkout step to detect-versions job so scripts exist on runner - Fix git cherry invocation (remove incorrect limit argument) - Replace grep -oP with portable bash regex for macOS compat - Replace GNU sed \+ with sed -E / bash regex for portability - Document jq and gh prerequisites in test README

.github/scripts/cherry-pick-to-release.sh

.github/scripts/tests/README.md

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 13 out of 13 changed files in this pull request and generated 5 comments.

.github/scripts/cherry-pick-to-release.sh

.github/workflows/cherry-pick-hotfix.yml

.github/scripts/tests/README.md

eng/pipelines/dotnet-sqlclient-ci-project-reference-pipeline.yml

eng/pipelines/dotnet-sqlclient-ci-package-reference-pipeline.yml

- Fix git cherry arg order: scope already-applied check to the exact PR commit - Guard cherry-pick job with if-condition when matrix is empty ([]) - Fix ::set-output:: reference in test README (scripts use $GITHUB_OUTPUT) - Fix 'pipline' typo in both CI pipeline YAML files - Scope milestones API call to open milestones only (--field state=open)

paulmedynski requested a review from a team as a code owner March 31, 2026 13:18

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings March 31, 2026 13:18

github-project-automation bot added this to SqlClient Board Mar 31, 2026

github-project-automation bot moved this to To triage in SqlClient Board Mar 31, 2026

paulmedynski added the Area\Engineering Use this for issues that are targeted for changes in the 'eng' folder or build systems. label Mar 31, 2026

paulmedynski moved this from To triage to In review in SqlClient Board Mar 31, 2026

paulmedynski added this to the 7.1.0-preview1 milestone Mar 31, 2026

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paulmedynski commented Mar 31, 2026

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Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings April 1, 2026 11:06

paulmedynski force-pushed the dev/paul/hotfix-action branch from 269ef41 to dd13252 Compare April 1, 2026 11:06

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paulmedynski added 3 commits April 2, 2026 08:51

Added a GitHub action to create hotfix PRs for merged PRs that have "…

0e4f882

…Hotfix X.Y.Z" labels.

Specified dev/automation as the branch name prefix.

f6f77dd

paulmedynski added 8 commits April 2, 2026 08:51

Future-proofing our pipelines to trigger on main and release branches.

d8afc60

Detect already-applied commits before cherry-pick

dd53de5

Add a pre-check using 'git cherry' to determine if the merge commit's patch is already present on the target release branch. If so, the job exits cleanly with a notice instead of producing an empty commit or a misleading CONFLICTS PR.

Add README for bats test suite

481bb5b

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings April 2, 2026 11:51

paulmedynski force-pushed the dev/paul/hotfix-action branch from c3f3d2f to 00ed23a Compare April 2, 2026 11:51

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Addressed PR comments/suggestions.

9b625e2

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mdaigle approved these changes Apr 6, 2026

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apoorvdeshmukh approved these changes Apr 6, 2026

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paulmedynski merged commit f8183c1 into main Apr 6, 2026
299 checks passed

paulmedynski deleted the dev/paul/hotfix-action branch April 6, 2026 16:25

github-project-automation bot moved this from In review to Done in SqlClient Board Apr 6, 2026

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