🚀 GitHub Action for committing changes to repository

Powerful GitHub Action for automatically committing and pushing changes back to your repository.

📦 Available on

• Docker Hub: devopsinfra/action-commit-push:latest
• GitHub Packages: ghcr.io/devops-infra/action-commit-push:latest

✨ Features

• 📝 Custom commit messages: Add custom prefixes and messages to commits
• 🔏 Commit signing: Sign generated commits with GPG or SSH keys
• 🌿 Branch management: Create new branches automatically with optional timestamps
• ⏰ Timestamp support: Add timestamps to branch names for cron-based updates
• 🔄 Integration-ready: Works seamlessly with other DevOps workflows
• 💪 Force push options: Support for --force and --force-with-lease when needed
• 🔀 Pull request integration: Perfect companion for automated PR workflows
• 🎯 Deterministic branch reset: Optionally reset target branches to a chosen base branch before committing
• 🧩 Empty commit support: Optionally create empty commits for no-diff automation flows
• 🛡️ Rebase conflict control: Choose strict failure or legacy best-effort behavior on rebase conflicts

🔗 Related Actions

Perfect for automation workflows and integrates seamlessly with devops-infra/action-pull-request.

📊 Badges

🏷️ Version Tags: vX, vX.Y, vX.Y.Z

This action supports three tag levels for flexible versioning:

• vX: latest patch of the major version (e.g., v1).
• vX.Y: latest patch of the minor version (e.g., v1.2).
• vX.Y.Z: fixed to a specific release (e.g., v1.2.3).

📖 API Reference

      - name: Run the Action
        uses: devops-infra/[email protected]
        with:
          github_token: "${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}"
          add_timestamp: true
          amend: false
          commit_prefix: "[AUTO]"
          commit_message: "Automatic commit"
          user_name: ""
          user_email: ""
          signing_mode: ""
          signing_key: ""
          signing_passphrase: ""
          force: false
          force_with_lease: false
          no_edit: false
          organization_domain: github.com
          target_branch: update/version

🔧 Input Parameters

📤 Output Parameters

💻 Usage Examples

📝 Basic Example

Commit and push changes to the currently checked out branch.

name: Run the Action
on:
  push
jobs:
  change-and-push:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v6
      - name: Change something
        run: |
          find . -type f -name "*.md" -print0 | xargs -0 sed -i "s/foo/bar/g"

      - name: Commit and push changes
        uses: devops-infra/[email protected]
        with:
          github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          commit_message: "Replace foo with bar"

🔀 Advanced Example

Commit and push changes to a new branch and create a pull request using devops-infra/action-pull-request.

name: Push changes and create PR
on:
  push
jobs:
  change-and-push:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v6
      - name: Change something
        run: |
          find . -type f -name "*.md" -print0 | xargs -0 sed -i "s/foo/bar/g"

      - name: Commit and push changes
        uses: devops-infra/[email protected]
        with:
          github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          commit_prefix: "[AUTO-COMMIT] "
          commit_message: "Replace foo with bar"

      - name: Create pull request
        uses: devops-infra/action-pull-request@v1
        with:
          github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          body: "**Automated pull request**<br><br>Replaced foo with bar"
          title: ${{ github.event.commits[0].message }}

💪 Force Push Example

When you need to amend the previous commit and force push (useful when adding automatic changes to manual commit).

name: Amend and force push
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      new_commit_message:
        description: 'New commit message'
        required: true
        default: 'Updated commit message'

jobs:
  amend-commit:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository with full history
        uses: actions/checkout@v6
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0  # Required for force_with_lease
      - name: Make some changes
        run: |
          echo "Additional content" >> README.md

      - name: Amend and force push with lease
        uses: devops-infra/[email protected]
        with:
          github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          commit_message: ${{ github.event.inputs.new_commit_message }}
          amend: true
          force_with_lease: true  # Safer force push option

📁 Custom checkout path example

Commit and push when actions/checkout uses a custom path.

name: Commit from custom checkout path
on:
  push
jobs:
  change-and-push:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository into custom path
        uses: actions/checkout@v6
        with:
          path: work/repo

      - name: Change something in checked out repository
        run: |
          echo "Updated" >> work/repo/README.md

      - name: Commit and push changes
        uses: devops-infra/[email protected]
        with:
          github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          repository_path: work/repo
          commit_message: "Update README"

👤 Custom commit identity example

Override the git author/committer identity used by the action.

- name: Commit and push with custom identity
  uses: devops-infra/[email protected]
  with:
    github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    commit_message: "test(commit-push): custom identity"
    user_name: "Release Automation"
    user_email: "[email protected]"

When user_name and user_email are empty, the action defaults to:

• user.name = ${{ github.actor }}
• user.email = ${{ github.actor }}@users.noreply.<organization_domain>

🔏 Commit Signing

This action can sign generated commits by configuring repository-local git signing settings at runtime.

• signing_mode: gpg imports an ASCII-armored private OpenPGP key into an isolated temporary GNUPGHOME.
• signing_mode: ssh uses an SSH private key file and git's SSH signing mode.
• Temporary key material is written outside the repository and removed when the container exits.
• Passphrase-protected GPG keys are supported through non-interactive loopback pinentry.
• Encrypted SSH signing keys are currently rejected explicitly instead of falling back to interactive prompts.

🔐 GPG signing example

- name: Commit and push signed changes
  uses: devops-infra/[email protected]
  with:
    github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    commit_message: "test(commit-push): signed with gpg"
    signing_mode: gpg
    signing_key: ${{ secrets.GPG_PRIVATE_KEY }}
    signing_passphrase: ${{ secrets.GPG_PASSPHRASE }}

🔐 SSH signing example

- name: Commit and push SSH-signed changes
  uses: devops-infra/[email protected]
  with:
    github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    commit_message: "test(commit-push): signed with ssh"
    signing_mode: ssh
    signing_key: ${{ secrets.SSH_SIGNING_KEY }}

🩺 Signing troubleshooting

• Failed to import GPG signing key usually means the secret is not an ASCII-armored private key export.
• Failed to read SSH signing key usually means the secret is not a valid private key.
• Encrypted SSH signing keys are not supported in this runtime means the key must be provided without a passphrase.
• If downstream verification fails, confirm your verifier trusts the matching public key and uses git's corresponding gpg.format.

📝 Amend Options

When using amend: true, you have several options for handling the commit message:

1. Change the commit message: Set commit_message to provide a new message

   - uses: devops-infra/[email protected]
     with:
       github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
       commit_message: "Fixed typo in documentation"
       amend: true
       force_with_lease: true
   

2. Keep existing message: Set no_edit: true to keep the original commit message

   - uses: devops-infra/[email protected]
     with:
       github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
       amend: true
       no_edit: true
       force_with_lease: true
   

3. Default behavior: If neither is set, uses "Files changed:" with file list (when files are modified)

💡 Note: Amending works even without file changes - useful for just changing commit messages!

⚠️ Force Push Options

This action provides two force push options for different scenarios:

🛡️ force_with_lease (Recommended)

• Uses git push --force-with-lease
• Safer option that checks if someone else has pushed changes to the remote branch
• Prevents accidentally overwriting other people's work
• Required: Set fetch-depth: 0 in your actions/checkout step
• Use case: Amending commits, rebasing, or other history modifications

⚡ force (Use with Caution)

• Uses git push --force
• Potentially dangerous as it will overwrite remote changes unconditionally
• No safety checks - will overwrite any remote changes
• Use case: Only when you're absolutely certain you want to overwrite remote changes

⚠️ Important: Never use both options simultaneously. force_with_lease takes precedence if both are set to true.

🎯 Use specific version

Pick the tag level based on your stability needs:

• vX.Y.Z: exact immutable release (most predictable)
• vX.Y: latest patch within one minor line
• vX: latest patch within one major line

name: Run the Action
on:
  push:
    branches-ignore: master
jobs:
  action-commit-push:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v6

      - uses: devops-infra/[email protected]
        id: Pin patch version

      - uses: devops-infra/[email protected]
        id: Pin minor version

      - uses: devops-infra/action-commit-push@v1
        id: Pin major version

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! See CONTRIBUTING. This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

💬 Support

If you have any questions or need help, please:

• 📝 Create an issue
• 🌟 Star this repository if you find it useful!

🧪 End-to-End Validation

Use the manual workflow .github/workflows/manual-e2e-validate.yml to validate this action against the centralized E2E repository.

• mode=ref validates ref-oriented E2E paths against stable pinned action refs.
• mode=image is wired but currently placeholder-only in the central E2E workflow for this action.

CI/CD automation also runs these E2E checks automatically:

• Pull requests: E2E validation runs through reusable org workflows.
• Release branch prepare: E2E validation runs against release candidate refs.
• Release create: E2E validation runs against production release refs.

Example trigger inputs:

mode=ref

mode=image
image_tag=v1.2.3-test

Forking

To publish images from a fork, set these variables so Task uses your registry identities: DOCKER_USERNAME, DOCKER_ORG_NAME, GITHUB_USERNAME, GITHUB_ORG_NAME.

Two supported options (environment variables take precedence over .env):

# .env (local only, not committed)
DOCKER_USERNAME=your-dockerhub-user
DOCKER_ORG_NAME=your-dockerhub-org
GITHUB_USERNAME=your-github-user
GITHUB_ORG_NAME=your-github-org

# Shell override
DOCKER_USERNAME=your-dockerhub-user \
DOCKER_ORG_NAME=your-dockerhub-org \
GITHUB_USERNAME=your-github-user \
GITHUB_ORG_NAME=your-github-org \
task docker:build

Recommended setup:

• Local development: use a .env file.
• GitHub Actions: set repo variables for the four values above, and secrets for DOCKER_TOKEN and GITHUB_TOKEN.

Publish images without a release:

• Run the (Manual) Release Create workflow with build_only: true to build and push images without tagging a release.