Private Actions Checkout

private-actions-checkout

Simplifies using custom private actions (and promotes code reuse) by looping through a list of repositories and checking them out into the job's workspace. Supports using GitHub Apps or multiple SSH keys.

Optionally configures git to allow subsequent steps to provide authenticated access private repos.

This action is tested on ubuntu-latest and macos-latest. No Windows support yet.

Usage

Pre-requisites

Create a workflow .yml file in your repositories .github/workflows directory. An example workflow is available below. For more information, reference the GitHub Help Documentation for Creating a workflow file.

Supported authentications

To checkout private repositories we need a supported authentication accepted by the Git protocol. This action supports GitHub Apps and SSH keys.

For enterprise environments we recommend using a GitHub app per organization with 1 installation as it doesn't require having a machine account.

Inputs

actions_list - OPTIONAL: List of private actions to checkout. Must be a JSON array and each entry must match the format owner/repo@ref. May be an empty array if no actions are required.
checkout_base_path - OPTIONAL: Where to checkout the custom actions. It uses ./.github/actions as default path
return_app_token - OPTIONAL: If set to true then an output variable called app-token will be set that can be used for basic auth to github by subsequent steps (only works with Github Apps as the authentication method)
configure_git - OPTIONAL: If set to true then git config is executed to grant subsequent steps access to other private repos using the ssh or Github App token.

If you want to use GitHub Apps (recommended):

app_id: the GitHub App id obtained when you create a GitHub app
app_private_key: the GitHub App private key generated for an app with permissions on the repositories

We support the key being plain and base64 encoded. To encode the private key you can use the following command: cat key.pem | base64 | tr -d \\n && echo

If you want to use SSH keys:

ssh_private_key - OPTIONAL: If provided, configures the ssh-agent with the given private key. If not provided the code assumes that valid SSH credentials are available to the git executable. If configure_git is enabled then the agent will be left running until the end of the job.

GitHub app requisites

If you want to use this action with a GitHub app you will need to setup some permissions. Follow the create GitHub app guide and check:

Repository permissions
- Contents: read

Once it is created, install the GitHub app in your account or organization and grant access to the repositories that contain the actions you want to checkout (or all if you are not concerned the app has wide access in the account or org).

Example workflows

GitHub app

name: 'Example workflow'

on: push

jobs:
  example:
    runs-on: ubuntu-18.04

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2

    - name: Private actions checkout
      uses: daspn/private-actions-checkout@v2
      with:
        actions_list: '["githubuser/my-private-action-1@v1", "githubuser/my-private-action-2@v1"]'
        checkout_base_path: ./.github/actions
        app_id: ${{ secrets.APP_ID }}
        app_private_key: ${{ secrets.APP_PRIVATE_KEY }}

    - name: Validation
      run: |
        ls -lR ./.github/actions

    # the custom private action will be available on the job's workspace
    - name: 'Using custom private action 1'
      uses: ./.github/actions/my-private-action-1
      with:
        some_arg: test

    - name: 'Using custom private action 2'
      uses: ./.github/actions/my-private-action-2

SSH

Single SSH key:

name: 'Example workflow'

on: push

jobs:
  example:
    runs-on: ubuntu-18.04

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2

    - name: Private actions checkout
      uses: daspn/private-actions-checkout@v2
      with:
        actions_list: '["githubuser/my-private-action-1@v1", "githubuser/my-private-action-2@v1"]'
        checkout_base_path: ./.github/actions
        ssh_private_key: ${{ secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}

    - name: Validation
      run: |
        ls -lR ./.github/actions

    # the custom private action will be available on the job's workspace
    - name: 'Using custom private action 1'
      uses: ./.github/actions/my-private-action-1
      with:
        some_arg: test

    - name: 'Using custom private action 2'
      uses: ./.github/actions/my-private-action-2

Multiple SSH keys workflow example:

name: 'Multiple SSH Keys workflow example'

on: push

jobs:
  example:
    runs-on: ubuntu-18.04

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2

    - name: Checking out private actions from github_user
      uses: daspn/private-actions-checkout@v2
      with:
        actions_list: '["github_user/my-private-action-1@v1", "github_user/my-private-action-2@v1"]'
        checkout_base_path: ./.github/actions
        ssh_private_key: ${{ secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY_1 }}

    - name: Checking out private actions from another_github_user
      uses: daspn/private-actions-checkout@v2
      with:
        actions_list: '["another_github_user/my-private-action-3@v1", "another_github_user/my-private-action-4@v1"]'
        checkout_base_path: ./.github/actions
        ssh_private_key: ${{ secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY_2 }}

    - name: Validation
      run: |
        ls -lR ./.github/actions

    # the custom private action will be available on the job's workspace
    - name: 'Using custom private action 1'
      uses: ./.github/actions/my-private-action-1
      with:
        some_arg: test

    - name: 'Using custom private action 4'
      uses: ./.github/actions/my-private-action-4

No SSH Key example workflow:

name: 'No SSH Key example workflow'

on: push

jobs:
  example:
    runs-on: ubuntu-18.04

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2

    # setting up the SSH agent using a third party action
    - uses: webfactory/ssh-agent@v0.2.0
      with:
        ssh-private-key: ${{ secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}

    # as no SSH key is provided the action will assume valid SSH credentials are available
    - name: Private actions checkout
      uses: daspn/private-actions-checkout@v2
      with:
        actions_list: '["githubuser/my-private-action-1@v1", "githubuser/my-private-action-2@v1"]'
        checkout_base_path: ./.github/actions

    - name: Validation
      run: |
        ls -lR ./.github/actions

    # the custom private action will be available on the job's workspace
    - name: 'Using custom private action 1'
      uses: ./.github/actions/my-private-action-1
      with:
        some_arg: test

    - name: 'Using custom private action 2'
      uses: ./.github/actions/my-private-action-2

GitHub App authorizing a Go application to fetch other private dependencies:

name: 'Example workflow'

on: push

jobs:
  example:
    runs-on: ubuntu-18.04

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2

    - name: Private actions checkout
      uses: daspn/private-actions-checkout@v2
      with:
        app_id: ${{ secrets.APP_ID }}
        app_private_key: ${{ secrets.APP_PRIVATE_KEY }}
        configure_git: true

    - name: Set up Go
      uses: actions/setup-go@v2
      with:
        go-version: 1.15

    # Go build will be able to access other private repos authorized to the app
    - name: Build
      run: go build -v .

How to build

Local environment setup

To build this code, Node.js 12.x is required.

After installing Node.js 12.x, install the NPM package zeit/ncc by running:

npm i -g @zeit/ncc

Building the code

npm i
npm run build

This will update the dist/index.js and dist/cleanup/index.js files.

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Private Actions Checkout