Troubleshooting GitHub Actions: Overcoming Permission Issues During Automated Commits

If you’re venturing into automation with GitHub Actions and encounter hurdles when attempting to commit changes, you’re not alone. Many developers, especially those new to web development, often face permission challenges that prevent automated workflows from updating repositories as intended. Here’s a look into a common issue and how to resolve it.

Understanding the Scenario

Suppose you’ve built a scraper that fetches data from an external calendar and saves this information into a JSON file. Your goal is to use GitHub Actions to automate the updating of this JSON data directly into your repository. This setup enables your static website to dynamically display current information without manual updates.

The Challenge

While your GitHub Actions workflow successfully pulls data and attempts to commit the updated JSON, it consistently fails at the commit stage with an error indicating insufficient permissions. Typically, the error message resembles:

plaintext
remote: Permission to [repository] denied to github-actions[bot].
fatal: unable to access 'https://github.com/username/repository.git': The requested URL returned error: 403

This indicates that, despite configuring a token, the bot doesn’t have the proper permissions to push changes to your repository.

Common Causes and Solutions

1. Incorrect Token Scope

2. Ensure that the token used in your GitHub Actions workflow has the appropriate permissions.

3. For repository updates, the token should have repo scope, which grants full control of private repositories.

4. If you’re using a GITHUB_TOKEN provided by GitHub, verify that your repository settings permit Actions to make commits and pull requests.

5. Misconfigured Workflow Permissions

6. Starting from GitHub Actions updates, you need to explicitly grant permissions for workflows.

7. In your repository settings, navigate to “Settings” > “Actions” > “General” and check the workflow permissions.

8. Set the permission for workflows to “Read and write” or specify custom permissions as needed.

9. Incorrect Usage of the Token in Workflow

10. Confirm that the token is correctly referenced in your workflow YAML file.

11. For example:

“`yaml
– name: Commit changes
run: |
git config –global user.name “github-actions[bot]”
git config –global user.email “github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com”
git add .
git commit -m “Automated update of JSON data”
git push