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

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

REPOSITORIES Configuration Examples

REPOSITORIES: |
    username/repo
    username/repo2

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

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

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

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

WORKFLOW_FILES: |
    folder1
    .github/folder2

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

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

📝 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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