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Set git user and email #13

@wesleytodd

Description

@wesleytodd

It would be great if this action would also set the email and name. In order to do other git operations it is required. I am adding this to my actions to get around it:

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v1
  - name: Setup git user
    run: |
        git config --global user.name "$(git --no-pager log --format=format:'%an' -n 1)"
        git config --global user.email "$(git --no-pager log --format=format:'%ae' -n 1)"

Unfortunately I don't have access to the user email. It seems like these can come from the account in a more clean way here, but I guess I could also create my own action. Since this is so new I am not sure what the best way forward is so thought I would post here.

Activity

TingluoHuang

TingluoHuang commented on Aug 16, 2019

@TingluoHuang
Member

@chrispat for feedback.

eine

eine commented on Oct 25, 2019

@eine

This would be useful for users willing to update gh-pages hosted on separate repos using a deployment key (e.g. https://github.com/1138-4EB/vunit/blob/migrate-to-gha/.github/workflows/push.yml#L63-L74). This is specially so, because GITHUB_TOKEN's scope is limited and personal access tokens are not scoped to a single target repo.

wesleytodd

wesleytodd commented on Oct 27, 2019

@wesleytodd
Author

This would be useful for users willing to update gh-pages

This was actually my first use case for this!

https://github.com/pkgjs/gh-pages/blob/master/entrypoint.sh#L4-L5

fregante

fregante commented on Oct 31, 2019

@fregante

I recently wrote an action that sets up the user and email the @action user, so you can also push back to the repo, as long as you use the v2 of actions/checkout

https://github.com/fregante/setup-git-user

  steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
    - uses: fregante/setup-git-user@v1
Old action I recently wrote an action that sets up the user, email and token in one go, so you can also push back to the repo.

https://github.com/fregante/setup-git-token

    - uses: fregante/setup-git-token@v1
      with:
        token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        name: The Bot
        email: bot@example.com
eine

eine commented on Dec 16, 2019

@eine

@ericsciple, should this issue be closed now that #107 is merged? It seems to be included in v2: https://github.com/actions/checkout/commits/v2

wesleytodd

wesleytodd commented on Dec 18, 2019

@wesleytodd
Author

So that PR is a bit hard to grok on my phone (even with the improvements in the GitHub app), but it is unclear if that sets the name and email. This issue is specifically about that need. Does that PR solve this use case indirectly?

eine

eine commented on Dec 18, 2019

@eine

@wesleytodd, see:

checkout/action.yml

Lines 12 to 17 in 3537747

token:
description: >
Auth token used to fetch the repository. The token is stored in the local
git config, which enables your scripts to run authenticated git commands.
The post-job step removes the token from the git config.
default: ${{ github.token }}

It seems to me that this issue was/is about "do other (authenticated) git operations"; precisely update gh-pages (which was/is your "first use case for this"). Explicitly setting the user and email would have been an approach. Using the token to do so is just another suitable solution.

Moreover, I think it would be desirable to support optionally using deployment keys instead of tokens (be it the default or a PAT). This is because default tokens do not allow to update other repos; while PATs provide too many permissions. Nonetheless, even if keys were supported, I believe that setting the user and email would still be a side effect.

Therefore, I think that this issue should be either closed or repurposed to account for the new feature in master.

wesleytodd

wesleytodd commented on Dec 19, 2019

@wesleytodd
Author

Awesome, thanks for the more clear explanation! I have never used the method I see in that PR, so one last question I have:

Does using a token for git auth also stop git from complaining about no user or email when committing?

eine

eine commented on Dec 19, 2019

@eine

Does using a token for git auth also stop git from complaining about no user or email when committing?

Although I'm not sure about that, I believe it should. The usefulness of the feature would be very limited otherwise.

Anyway, even if it works, there is currently a bug that prevents gh-pages from being updated when the token is used: actions/toolkit#247. Hence, you might want to keep using a deployment key.

HDouss

HDouss commented on Jan 28, 2020

@HDouss

Awesome, thanks for the more clear explanation! I have never used the method I see in that PR, so one last question I have:

Does using a token for git auth also stop git from complaining about no user or email when committing?

No, that does not stop git from complaining. You still have to git config name and email. All what it does is that commits and pushes are well authenticated, but you should provide name and email before that. And yes, that limits the usefulness as @eine said.

ericsciple

ericsciple commented on Feb 13, 2020

@ericsciple
Contributor

+1 i didnt realize the built-in GITHUB_TOKEN has push permission... i'll open an adr shortly...

56 remaining items

added a commit that references this issue on May 25, 2024
janbrasna

janbrasna commented on Jul 3, 2024

@janbrasna

While I share the sentiment above regarding correctly setting the git credentials for either the PAT or maybe github.actor by default, I'm surprised there's nothing set by default, like the action bot above, to save setting that gazillion times a day from workflows…

BTW to update the list above:

  1. The [README.md] suggests github-actions <github-actions@github.com>. However, this email is not recognized by the platform. GitHub displays the author of the commit with the generic icon and without a link.
    grafik

This has been fixed since, as running this most simple config links the bot account as below correctly. So this is now my fav syntax, not having quote stuff and remembering ids etc., just works mid-2024.

The README now shows 2.# instead though:

  1. [A thread in the GitHub Support Community] suggests github-actions[bot] <41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>. This seems to work nicely. The author of the commit has the same icon and name as GitHub Actions everywhere else. The link goes to https://github.com/features/actions as I would expect. I'm just wondering if there is any caveat since it is not promoted in the README.md.
    grafik

This is now in the README as is the most complete syntax. But a little superfluous, with risks like badly escaping the \["]" characters etc. so I prefer 1.# instead.

The last one is probably not for public use like this…

  1. Most repositories I found seem to use GitHub Action <action@github.com>. I don't know where this is comming from. GitHub seems to link it to some user but clicking on the user opens a 404-page. The icon and name doesn't match what is usually shown for GitHub Actions.
    grafik

Oh that feels like some internal user used for owning the actions, or maybe running them in the past. So basically that is a valid user and is owned by GH, it's some sort of a technical account and it's better use the well known bot accounts above.

TL;DR i'm running:

git config user.name github-actions
git config user.email github-actions@github.com

to avoid any quotes and escapes and whatnot, and it is attributed correctly:

Screen Shot 2024-07-03 at 21 05 42

added a commit that references this issue on Aug 2, 2024
qoomon

qoomon commented on Aug 2, 2024

@qoomon

I wrote a simple action to tackle this problem once and for all https://github.com/qoomon/actions--setup-git

added a commit that references this issue on Aug 2, 2024
chouetz

chouetz commented on Dec 20, 2024

@chouetz

Hi 👋🏽
In case anyone is still following this issue I've done (yet another) suggestion PR #2012 (as the other ones are old and not updated after comments) which is waiting for owner's review.
I think it makes sense to have this feature included in action/checkout rather than using another action to setup the git config.
Thanks in advance

expikr

expikr commented on May 20, 2025

@expikr

@janbrasna try

65916846+actions-user@users.noreply.github.com

In general you can find the numeric user ID of any user at https://api.github.com/users/{username}

Examples:

Web-Flow user

git config user.name GitHub
git config user.email noreply@github.com

Github Actions

git config user.name github-actions[bot]
git config user.email 41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com

Actions user

git config user.name actions-user
git config user.email 65916846+actions-user@users.noreply.github.com

Dependabot

git config user.name dependabot[bot]
git config user.email 49699333+dependabot[bot]@users.noreply.github.com

Deleted user

git config user.name ghost
git config user.email 10137+ghost@users.noreply.github.com
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      Issue actions

        Set git user and email · Issue #13 · actions/checkout