Why is the committer showing up as `actions-user`?

[miparnisari]

I have a workflow like this:

      - name: "Make commit"
        run: |
          ...
          git config user.name "GitHub Actions"
          git config user.email "actions@github.com"
          git commit -m "Update generated docs"
          ...
      - 
        uses: "peter-evans/create-pull-request@v7"
        with:
          token: "${{ secrets.PAT_TO_PUSH_TO_DOCS }}"
          path: "docs-repo"
          title: "Auto-generated PR: Update docs"
          body: "This PR was auto-generated by GitHub Actions."
          branch: "auto-update-branch"

and I see that the PR gets created correctly, but under the username actions-user: https://github.com/actions-user

This is neither the user that made the commit, nor the default user specified in

create-pull-request/action.yml

Line 27 in 450b15d

default: 'github-actions[bot] <41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>'

[peter-evans]

Hi @miparnisari

It's because your workflow is making it's own commit before the action runs. See https://github.com/authzed/zed/blob/b1550f56b3e4d828a68dad350e2fdfa23cbf4d44/.github/workflows/docs.yaml#L41-L55

This is a valid strategy, but it could also be simplified. The previous step doesn't need to commit. The action can do that for you. And then, optionally, the author and committer inputs can be used and applied to the commit that the action makes.

      - name: "Sync documentation changes"
        run: |
          mkdir -p docs-repo/$(dirname $TARGET_DOCS_FILE)
          cp -v $GENERATED_DOCS_FILE docs-repo/$TARGET_DOCS_FILE
-         cd docs-repo
-         git config user.name "GitHub Actions"
-         git config user.email "actions@github.com"
-         git add $TARGET_DOCS_FILE
-         if ! git diff --cached --exit-code; then
-           git commit -m "Update generated docs"
-           echo "CHANGES_DETECTED=true" >> $GITHUB_ENV
-         else
-           echo "No changes detected"
-           echo "CHANGES_DETECTED=false" >> $GITHUB_ENV
-         fi
      - name: "Create pull request"
-       if: |
-         env.CHANGES_DETECTED == 'true'
        uses: "peter-evans/create-pull-request@v7"
        with:
          token: "${{ secrets.PAT_TO_PUSH_TO_DOCS }}"
          path: "docs-repo"
          title: "Auto-generated PR: Update zed docs"
          body: "This PR was auto-generated by GitHub Actions."
          branch: "auto-update-branch"