Troubleshooting GitHub Actions: Solutions for Access Denied When Committing Changes

If you’re developing an automated workflow using GitHub Actions to scrape data and update files in your repository, encountering permissions errors can be frustrating. Recently, I faced a similar challenge where my workflow successfully scraped data, but failed at the commit stage, citing a lack of access rights.

In this blog, I’ll share insights into why this problem occurs and how to resolve it, especially if you’re new to web development and automation.

Understanding the Issue

The core problem is that your GitHub Actions workflow cannot push changes back to your repository. The error message typically resembles:

“`
remote: Permission to (repository) denied to github-actions[bot].

fatal: unable to access ‘(repository link)’: The requested URL returned error: 403
“`

This indicates that the automated bot doesn’t have the necessary permissions to perform commit operations.

Common Causes and Solutions

1. Incorrect or Missing Authentication Token
   Make sure you have configured a Personal Access Token (PAT) with appropriate scopes, such as repo, and added it as a secret in your repository settings.
2. Generate a PAT with full repo access on GitHub.
3. Store this token securely as a repository secret, e.g., GH_PAT.

4. Reference this secret in your workflow with ${{ secrets.GH_PAT }}.

5. Proper Use of the Token in Workflow
   When running commands like git push, ensure your workflow is configured to authenticate using the token. For example:

yaml
- name: Push 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 "Updating data from scraper"
git push https://x-access-token:${{ secrets.GH_PAT }}@github.com/username/repository.git HEAD:main

Replace 'username/repository' with your actual repo info.

1. Workflow Permissions
   Ensure your repository has enabled actions to create and push to branches, especially if you’re working on protected branches.

2. Verify Token Scope and Validity
   Double-check that your PAT hasn’t expired and that it includes sufficient permissions.

Additional Tips

• Use the GITHUB_TOKEN provided automatically for workflows, which has default permissions