bincapz-action

Enumerate and diff capabilities of all files in a repository (and compiled artifacts)! 📦🔍

This action runs the bincapz tool from Chainguard on a repository. It can run as a PR check, add a report as a release artifact, or any other place you may want to have eyes on binary differences.

• example workflows
• example reports

flowchart LR
    subgraph Inputs
    A(workdir<br>/path/to/workdir) --> D(fab:fa-github GitHub Actions<br>compile if needed)
    B(format<br>markdown, yaml, or json) --> D
    C(files<br>#quot;list of files#quot;) --> D
    end
    D --> E(fab:fa-docker Wolfi container<br>bincapz)
    E --> F(bincapz-results.md<br>bincapz-results.yaml<br>bincapz-results.json)
    subgraph Outputs
    F --> G(release artifact)
    F --> H(PR comment)
    F --> I(actions step summary)
    F --> J(literally anything else 🤯)
    end

usage

Inputs are all optional.

• workdir - the path to the directory to run bincapz in. Default is ${{ github.workspace }}, but you may want to change it to only look at a subdirectory or to have multiple versions of the code checked out.
• format - the format of the output. Default is markdown, but you can also use yaml or json.
• files - a list of files to check. Default is all files in the repository that aren't in .git. Format is a string separated by whitespace, like files: "file1 file2 file3".

pull request changes

For compiled languages, you'll need to do two steps in a workflow.

1. Check out the code at head and base, then build the two and run bincapz on the resulting binaries (if needed). The workflow below is an example of that.
2. Compare the two reports from bincapz.

example github actions file

comment on the PR

here's an example of adding it as a PR comment

      - name: Diff bincapz results
        shell: bash
        run: |
          if [ $(diff prior-results/report.md current-results/report.md > diff.patch ) == "0" ]; then
            echo "✅ no binary capability changes detected" >> $GITHUB_EVENT_PATH
            echo "✅ no binary capability changes detected" >> diff.patch
            exit 0
          else
            echo "⚠️ binary capability changes detected ⚠️" >> $GITHUB_EVENT_PATH
            exit 0
          fi
      - name: Add github step summary to a PR comment
        uses: actions/github-script@v7
        with:
          github-token: ${{ github.token }}
          script: |
            const fs = require('fs');
            const diff = fs.readFileSync('diff.patch', 'utf8');
            github.rest.issues.createComment({
                issue_number: context.issue.number,
                owner: context.repo.owner,
                repo: context.repo.repo,
                body: '## Binary capability changes detected ⚠️\n\n```diff\n' + diff + '\n```'
              })

add a step summary

here's an example of adding it as a summary

      - name: Diff bincapz results
        shell: bash
        run: |
          echo "## Diff of bincapz results" >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY
          echo ' ' >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY
          if [ $(diff prior-results/report.md current-results/report.md > diff.patch ) == "0" ]; then
            echo "✅ no binary capability changes detected" >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY
            exit 0
          else
            echo "⚠️ binary capability changes detected ⚠️" >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY
            echo '```diff' >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY
            cat diff.patch >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY
            echo '```' >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY
            exit 0
          fi