Github Workflow Sync - Github Action

Github Action To Sync Github Action's Workflow Files Across Repositories

Use Case 🤔 ?

This Github Action can come in handy when you have lot of projects like i do. where in some case certain projects users action workflow which are common across projects. Example : Project 1 & Project 2 it can be pain to keep all the workflow updated with Github Action's Module's version.

This also isn't limited to Github Action yaml files - another use case could be keeping the .editorconfig, LICENSE, tsconfig.json, tslint.json, .gitignore, etc. in sync across all your repositories.

Here where this action comes in and reduces your stress 😉 it can update all your repository actions file based on the config provided

⚙️ Configuration

Argument	Defaults	Description
GITHUB_TOKEN	-	Required Token to use to get repos and write secrets. ${{secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN}} will not work. instead Personal Access Token Required*
GIT_URL	github.com	URL for the instance of github, where repositories should be searched for. Change if using a GHES instance.
REPOSITORIES	-	Required New line deliminated regex expressions to select repositories. Repositires are limited to those in whcich the token user is an owner or collaborator.
WORKFLOW_FILES	-	Required New line deliminated regex expressions. workflow files to be copied to provided repositores
DRY_RUN	false	Run everything except for nothing will be pushed.
WORKFLOW_FILES_DIR	workflows	Local Path Where Common Workflow Files Are Located Eg : workflows
AUTO_CREATE_NEW_BRANCH	false	Auto create new brach in a repository if the branch dose not exists
COMMIT_EACH_FILE	false	if you need to keep track of each file's commit history separate then set it to true
PULL_REQUEST	false	Set to true if you want the changes to be pushed via pull request.
SKIP_CI	false	Set to true if you want skip all automations inside target repository.
COMMIT_MESSAGE	false	You can provide your custom commit message.
RETRY_MODE	true	Enable retry and throttling octokit plugins to avoid secondary rate limits on github content creation.

Personal Access Token Scope

Github Personal Token Is required with the below scope

ℹ️ Full Repo is only required when you need to update private repository if your are updating only public repository then just select public_repo inside repo scope

Click Here To Generate A Token

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REPOSITORIES Configuration Examples

Repository With Default Brach

REPOSITORIES: |
    username/repo
    username/repo2

Repositry With Custom Branch

REPOSITORIES: |
    username/repo@dev
    username/repo1@dev2

You Can also have same repository multiple times if you provide different branch name

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WORKFLOW_FILES Configuration Examples

1. If you use = as a file seperator file1.md=myfile.md then file1 from the current repository will be copied to remote repository with the name of myfile.md
2. If you use != as a file seperator file1.md!=myfile.md then file1 from the current repository will be copied to remote repository with the name of myfile.md only if myfile.md already not exists in the remote repository

Files - Source & Destination File Without Custom Name

WORKFLOW_FILES: |
    dependabot.yml
    .github/settings.yml

dependabot.yml will save in root folder in the repository

.github/settings.yml will save in .github in the repository

Files - Source File In Root & Destination File In Custom Location

WORKFLOW_FILES: |
    hello-bot.yml=.github/
    pr-bot.yml=.github/pull-request.yml

hello-bot.yml will save in .github in the repository with the same name

pr-bot.yml will save in .github in the repository with the name pull-request.yml

Folders - Source & Destination Folders Without Custom Name

WORKFLOW_FILES: |
    folder1
    .github/folder2

folder1 will save in root folder in the repository

.github/folder2 will save in .github in the repository

Folders - Source & Destination Folders With Custom Name

WORKFLOW_FILES: |
    folder1=./save-to-folder
    .github/folder2=custom-folder/save-to-folder2

folder1 will save inside REPOSITORY ROOT in the name of save-to-folder

.github/folder2 will save inside custom-folder in the name of save-to-folder2

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How Files Sync Work ?

Before copying the WORKFLOW_FILES from the source to destination. this action will provide some flexibility. this searchs for a file in various locations for example lets take settings.yml as the file that you want to sync for multiple repository

Below are the locations that this action search for the file/folder

• ./{OWNER}/{REPO_NAME}/workflows/{filename}
• ./{OWNER}/workflows/{filename}
• ./{WORKFLOW_FILES_DIR}/{filename}
• ./.github/workflows/{filename}
• ./{OWNER}/{REPO_NAME}/{filename}
• ./{OWNER}/{filename}
• ./{filename}

if the settings.yml is found inside workflows folder then the destination is automaitcally forced to .github/workflows in the destination repo

if the settings.yml is outside of workflows folder then the destination then its copied to the destination

How this can be useful ?

Lets assume that you want to maintain all the common github files in a single repository and suddenly a repository needs a single file to be changed in that case instead of editing the action yml file. you can just create a folder like {REPO_OWNER}/{REPO_NAME}/{FILE} to copy the overriden file to the destination

🚀 Usage

Step 1

Create a New Repository or use our Repository Template

Step 2

if you have used our template repository then edit the file inside .github/workflows/workflow-sync.yml

OR

Create a new file in .github/workflows/ named workflow-sync.yml and copy & paste the below file content

workflow-sync.yml content

name: Workflow Sync

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master
env:
  DRY_RUN: false
  REPOSITORIES: |
  
  WORKFLOW_FILES: |

jobs:
  Github_Workflow_Sync:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Fetching Local Repository
        uses: actions/checkout@master
      - name: Running Workflow Sync
        uses: varunsridharan/action-github-workflow-sync@main
        with:
          DRY_RUN: ${{ env.DRY_RUN }}
          REPOSITORIES: ${{ env.REPOSITORIES }}
          WORKFLOW_FILES: ${{ env.WORKFLOW_FILES }}
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN }}

Troubleshooting

Spacing

Spacing around the equal sign is important. For example, this will not work:

WORKFLOW_FILES: |
  folder/file-sync.yml = folder/test.txt

It passes to the shell file 3 distinct objects

• folder/file-sync.ymll
• =
• folder/test.txt

instead of 1 object

• folder/file-sync.yml = folder/test.txt

and there is nothing I can do in code to make up for that

Slashes

You do not need (nor want) leading / for the file path on either side of the equal sign

The only time you need / trailing is for folder copies. While a file copy will technically still work with a leading /, a folder copy will not

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📝 Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog, and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

Checkout CHANGELOG.md

🤝 Contributing

If you would like to help, please take a look at the list of issues.

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📝 License & Conduct

• MIT license © Varun Sridharan

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Built With ♥ By Varun Sridharan 🇮🇳

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