GitHub Action for creating a GitHub App installation access token.
In order to use this action, you need to:
- Register new GitHub App
- Store the App's ID in your repository environment variables (example:
APP_ID
) - Store the App's private key in your repository secrets (example:
PRIVATE_KEY
)
Important
An installation access token expires after 1 hour. Please see this comment for alternative approaches if you have long-running processes.
name: Run tests on staging
on:
push:
branches:
- main
jobs:
hello-world:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/create-github-app-token@v1
id: app-token
with:
app-id: ${{ vars.APP_ID }}
private-key: ${{ secrets.PRIVATE_KEY }}
- uses: ./actions/staging-tests
with:
token: ${{ steps.app-token.outputs.token }}
on: [pull_request]
jobs:
auto-format:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/create-github-app-token@v1
id: app-token
with:
# required
app-id: ${{ vars.APP_ID }}
private-key: ${{ secrets.PRIVATE_KEY }}
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
with:
token: ${{ steps.app-token.outputs.token }}
ref: ${{ github.head_ref }}
# Make sure the value of GITHUB_TOKEN will not be persisted in repo's config
persist-credentials: false
- uses: creyD/[email protected]
with:
github_token: ${{ steps.app-token.outputs.token }}
on: [pull_request]
jobs:
auto-format:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/create-github-app-token@v1
id: app-token
with:
# required
app-id: ${{ vars.APP_ID }}
private-key: ${{ secrets.PRIVATE_KEY }}
- name: Get GitHub App User ID
id: get-user-id
run: echo "user-id=$(gh api "/users/${{ steps.app-token.outputs.app-slug }}[bot]" --jq .id)" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
env:
GH_TOKEN: ${{ steps.app-token.outputs.token }}
- id: committer
run: echo "string=${{ steps.app-token.outputs.app-slug }}[bot] <${{ steps.get-user-id.outputs.user-id }}+${{ steps.app-token.outputs.app-slug }}[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
- run: echo "committer string is ${ {steps.committer.outputs.string }}"
on: [pull_request]
jobs:
auto-format:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/create-github-app-token@v1
id: app-token
with:
# required
app-id: ${{ vars.APP_ID }}
private-key: ${{ secrets.PRIVATE_KEY }}
- name: Get GitHub App User ID
id: get-user-id
run: echo "user-id=$(gh api "/users/${{ steps.app-token.outputs.app-slug }}[bot]" --jq .id)" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
env:
GH_TOKEN: ${{ steps.app-token.outputs.token }}
- run: |
git config --global user.name '${{ steps.app-token.outputs.app-slug }}[bot]'
git config --global user.email '${{ steps.get-user-id.outputs.user-id }}+${{ steps.app-token.outputs.app-slug }}[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>'
# git commands like commit work using the bot user
- run: |
git add .
git commit -m "Auto-generated changes"
git push
Tip
The <BOT USER ID>
is the numeric user ID of the app's bot user, which can be found under https://api.github.com/users/<app-slug>%5Bbot%5D
.
For example, we can check at https://api.github.com/users/dependabot[bot]
to see the user ID of Dependabot is 49699333.
Alternatively, you can use the octokit/request-action to get the ID.
on: [workflow_dispatch]
jobs:
hello-world:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/create-github-app-token@v1
id: app-token
with:
app-id: ${{ vars.APP_ID }}
private-key: ${{ secrets.PRIVATE_KEY }}
owner: ${{ github.repository_owner }}
- uses: peter-evans/create-or-update-comment@v3
with:
token: ${{ steps.app-token.outputs.token }}
issue-number: ${{ github.event.issue.number }}
body: "Hello, World!"
on: [issues]
jobs:
hello-world:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/create-github-app-token@v1
id: app-token
with:
app-id: ${{ vars.APP_ID }}
private-key: ${{ secrets.PRIVATE_KEY }}
owner: ${{ github.repository_owner }}
repositories: "repo1,repo2"
- uses: peter-evans/create-or-update-comment@v3
with:
token: ${{ steps.app-token.outputs.token }}
issue-number: ${{ github.event.issue.number }}
body: "Hello, World!"
on: [issues]
jobs:
hello-world:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/create-github-app-token@v1
id: app-token
with:
app-id: ${{ vars.APP_ID }}
private-key: ${{ secrets.PRIVATE_KEY }}
owner: another-owner
- uses: peter-evans/create-or-update-comment@v3
with:
token: ${{ steps.app-token.outputs.token }}
issue-number: ${{ github.event.issue.number }}
body: "Hello, World!"
You can use a matrix strategy to create tokens for multiple user or organization accounts.
Note
See this documentation for information on using multiline strings in workflows.
on: [workflow_dispatch]
jobs:
set-matrix:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
outputs:
matrix: ${{ steps.set.outputs.matrix }}
steps:
- id: set
run: echo 'matrix=[{"owner":"owner1"},{"owner":"owner2","repos":["repo1"]}]' >>"$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
use-matrix:
name: "@${{ matrix.owners-and-repos.owner }} installation"
needs: [set-matrix]
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
strategy:
matrix:
owners-and-repos: ${{ fromJson(needs.set-matrix.outputs.matrix) }}
steps:
- uses: actions/create-github-app-token@v1
id: app-token
with:
app-id: ${{ vars.APP_ID }}
private-key: ${{ secrets.PRIVATE_KEY }}
owner: ${{ matrix.owners-and-repos.owner }}
repositories: ${{ join(matrix.owners-and-repos.repos) }}
- uses: octokit/[email protected]
id: get-installation-repositories
with:
route: GET /installation/repositories
env:
GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ steps.app-token.outputs.token }}
- run: echo "$MULTILINE_JSON_STRING"
env:
MULTILINE_JSON_STRING: ${{ steps.get-installation-repositories.outputs.data }}
on: [push]
jobs:
create_issue:
runs-on: self-hosted
steps:
- name: Create GitHub App token
id: create_token
uses: actions/create-github-app-token@v1
with:
app-id: ${{ vars.GHES_APP_ID }}
private-key: ${{ secrets.GHES_APP_PRIVATE_KEY }}
owner: ${{ vars.GHES_INSTALLATION_ORG }}
github-api-url: ${{ vars.GITHUB_API_URL }}
- name: Create issue
uses: octokit/[email protected]
with:
route: POST /repos/${{ github.repository }}/issues
title: "New issue from workflow"
body: "This is a new issue created from a GitHub Action workflow."
env:
GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ steps.create_token.outputs.token }}
Required: GitHub App ID.
Required: GitHub App private key. Escaped newlines (\\n
) will be automatically replaced with actual newlines.
Some other actions may require the private key to be Base64 encoded. To avoid recreating a new secret, it can be decoded on the fly, but it needs to be managed securely. Here is an example of how this can be achieved:
steps:
- name: Decode the GitHub App Private Key
id: decode
run: |
private_key=$(echo "${{ secrets.PRIVATE_KEY }}" | base64 -d | awk 'BEGIN {ORS="\\n"} {print}' | head -c -2) &> /dev/null
echo "::add-mask::$private_key"
echo "private-key=$private_key" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
- name: Generate GitHub App Token
id: app-token
uses: actions/create-github-app-token@v1
with:
app-id: ${{ vars.APP_ID }}
private-key: ${{ steps.decode.outputs.private-key }}
Optional: The owner of the GitHub App installation. If empty, defaults to the current repository owner.
Optional: Comma-separated list of repositories to grant access to.
Note
If owner
is set and repositories
is empty, access will be scoped to all repositories in the provided repository owner's installation. If owner
and repositories
are empty, access will be scoped to only the current repository.
Optional: If truthy, the token will not be revoked when the current job is complete.
Optional: The URL of the GitHub REST API. Defaults to the URL of the GitHub Rest API where the workflow is run from.
GitHub App installation access token.
GitHub App installation ID.
GitHub App slug.
The action creates an installation access token using the POST /app/installations/{installation_id}/access_tokens
endpoint. By default,
- The token is scoped to the current repository or
repositories
if set. - The token inherits all the installation's permissions.
- The token is set as output
token
which can be used in subsequent steps. - Unless the
skip-token-revoke
input is set to a truthy value, the token is revoked in thepost
step of the action, which means it cannot be passed to another job. - The token is masked, it cannot be logged accidentally.
Note
Installation permissions can differ from the app's permissions they belong to. Installation permissions are set when an app is installed on an account. When the app adds more permissions after the installation, an account administrator will have to approve the new permissions before they are set on the installation.