Feature request for retrieve multiple branches tips with --depth 1

[askoriy]

I need to checkout developing branch and then compare changes with the master branch.
By default actions/checkout@v2 fetches only one branch, and the only option to fetch multiple branches is to use fetch-depth: '0', which retrieves all history for all branches and tags, wasting time and traffic.

With git my issue is solving as clone --depth 1 --no-single-branch --branch developing <uri>
So next pipeline can operate with git diff origin/master

Is there a way to retrieve all (or some) branch tips without retrieving the whole history with this GHA?

[ericsciple]

The token is persisted by default, so I think this will work:

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v2
  - run: git fetch --depth=1

Hope that helps, let me know.

[Gowee]

I am encountering a similar problem. I am not sure how to apply the solution by eric.
So after some searching, here is my solution adapted from https://stackoverflow.com/a/27393574/5488616 :

git remote set-branches origin '*'
git fetch --depth 1
git checkout SOME_OTHER_BRANCH

[wmertens]

I'd just like to report that the @ericsciple's workaround works fine, and it allowed me to do eslint and jest only against changed files 🎉

eslint: git diff --name-only --diff-filter=ACMRTUXB origin/$BASE_REF | grep -E ".[jt]sx?$" | xargs -d \\\\n eslint --format github

jest: git reset origin/$BASE_REF; NODE_ENV=test jest --ci --coverage --color --onlyChanged; out=$?; git reset HEAD@{1}; exit $out

BASE_REF is passed in env, github.base_ref

[ioquatix]

I'm also interested in this, but for computing coverage.

To compute coverage of a PR, we need to detect modified lines relative to the default branch (e.g. main). This is so we can correctly compute a diff.

So, I need to fetch both the PR's branch, and the default branch, but I don't need all the commits, IIUC.

Maybe having an option like additional-refs is sufficient.