Troubleshooting GitHub Actions: Resolving Permission Issues During Automated Commits

As developers increasingly rely on automation to streamline workflows, encountering permission-related errors within GitHub Actions is a common hurdle—particularly when attempting to commit updates to repositories. Recently, I faced a similar challenge while developing a web scraping and data updating process, and I’d like to share insights that might help others navigate this issue.

The Scenario: Automating Data Synchronization with GitHub Actions

The goal was straightforward: build an automated system that extracts information from an external calendar and stores this data in a JSON file, which is then displayed on a static HTML site. To keep costs minimal, I chose GitHub Actions for automation, as it provides a free and integrated solution.

The workflow involved scraping data, updating the JSON file, and pushing these changes back to the repository automatically. While the process successfully pulled and processed the data, it consistently failed during the commit phase, with the error indicating a lack of permissions.

The Core Issue: Permission Denied During Push

Despite generating and using a personal access token, the Action couldn’t seem to push updates, throwing an error similar to:

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

This indicates that, although the token was created, the bot still lacked necessary privileges to modify the repository.

Troubleshooting Steps and Recommendations

1. Verify Token Permissions:
   Ensure the personal access token (PAT) has the correct scopes. For repository writes, it should typically include repo scope, which grants full control over private repositories. If your token only has limited permissions, it won’t be able to push commits.

2. Store and Use Secrets Properly:
   Confirm that the PAT is correctly stored as a secret in your GitHub repository settings (e.g., named GITHUB_TOKEN or custom). When configuring the workflow, reference this secret accurately.

3. Configure Git with Correct User Details:
   Ensure your workflow sets the git user email and name, such as:
   “`yaml

4. name: Configure Git
   run: |
   git config –global user.name “github-actions[bot]”
   git config –global user.email “github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com”
   “`

5. **Authenticate Correctly