Enable GitHub Actions to Push Code Changes

written by Eric J. Ma on 2023-08-26 | tags: til github github actions github workflow git configuration workflow runner github permissions repo settings workflow permissions github token

Today, I learned how about a hidden setting that's needed to enable GitHub Actions to push code to its associated repo, and wrote it out as a tutorial. As a bonus, I also share how to correctly configure git within a GitHub actions workflow. Discover the trick with me!

Today I learned how to ensure that GitHub actions is capable of pushing code to its associated repo.

The tl;dr is:

Within a repo, click on "Settings".
Within "Settings", click on "Actions", and then "General".
Under "General", look for "Workflow Permissions" and then grant "Read and write permissions" to the Workflow runner.

It'll look something like this:

Underneath the hood, there is a default secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN that is granted to a GitHub Actions' Workflow runner. The default permissions are read-only, as it needs to be able to clone the repo. However, we can enable it to push by enabling write permissions.

Once we've configured that setting, within a GitHub actions workflow, we need to ensure that git is configured correctly before pushing. In one of my workflow configuration files, I have it split up into two steps:

      - name: Configure Git
        run: |
          git config user.name github-actions
          git config user.email github-actions@github.com

      ... (other stuff goes here)

      - name: Push changes with tags
        run: |
          git push && git push --tags

Cite this blog post:

@article{
    ericmjl-2023-enable-github-actions-to-push-code-changes,
    author = {Eric J. Ma},
    title = {Enable GitHub Actions to Push Code Changes},
    year = {2023},
    month = {08},
    day = {26},
    howpublished = {\url{https://ericmjl.github.io}},
    journal = {Eric J. Ma's Blog},
    url = {https://ericmjl.github.io/blog/2023/8/26/enable-github-actions-to-push-code-changes},
}

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