Keepalived Workflows

Workflows will be automatically disabled by GitHub after 60 days of inactivity on the default branch. This action keeps workflows in your repository active by automatically generating git activity before the 60 days deadline. The action is meant to be run from time to time using a schedule event. If no authorship activity has happened for the past 41 days, the action will generate a commit onto the default branch, through writing a date-based marker into a hidden file within the .github directory. File path, inactivity period, and other parameters can easily be controlled through input parameters, or environment variables (for lesser used one).

This action is useful, for example, when a project needs to follow the release tempo of another (external) project or needs to update badges from time to time.

Usage

In most cases, you simply have to arrange for creating a workflow that will run at regular intervals, e.g. once a week, and run this action as in the following basic example.

name: keepalive

on:
  schedule:
    # Run every sunday at 1:27 UTC
    - cron: '27 1 * * SUN'

jobs:
  keepalive:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: keepalive
        uses: efrecon/gh-action-keepalive@main

You can also run the action as an extra step in a workflow that would already be running from time to time, the period being less important as long as it is long enough to be triggered before the 60 days deadline.

This action has good defaults, consult the file action.yml for a complete list of input parameters and their usage. In addition to the API that it provides through the different available parameters, it is also possible to fine tune the behaviour of this action through a set of environment variables. All variables start with the ACTIVITY_ prefix. The value of input parameters always have precedence over the content of the variables. Available variables are listed, together with a brief explanation at the beginning of the main implementation script.

History

This implementation is the second attempt at keeping alive workflows over longer period of time. A previous version was toggling twice the activity state of all workflows. But this strategy turned out not being able to bypass GitHub's deadline.