Troubleshooting GitHub Actions: Overcoming File Access Permissions in Automated Scripts

Implementing automated workflows with GitHub Actions can significantly streamline your development process. However, newcomers often encounter roadblocks, especially around permissions and access rights. Recently, I faced a common challenge while building a scraper that updates files within my repository, and I want to share insights on resolving such issues.

Scenario Overview

I developed a custom scraper tasked with extracting information from an external calendar, storing that data in a JSON file. My plan was for my static HTML site to display this information dynamically by referencing the JSON content. Since GitHub Actions was my chosen platform—being free and accessible—I set up an automated workflow to handle the scraping and file updating tasks.

The Core Issue: Permission Denied Error

While the workflow successfully performed the scraping, it consistently failed during the commit step, reporting a permission denied message:

remote: Permission to (repository) denied to github-actions[bot].
fatal: unable to access '(repository URL)': The requested URL returned error: 403
Error: Process completed with exit code 128.

This error indicates that the bot account used by GitHub Actions does not have sufficient rights to push changes back to the repository.

Common Causes and Solutions

1. Invalid or Missing Access Tokens
   Ensure that the Personal Access Token (PAT) provided to the GitHub Actions workflow is correctly generated with the necessary scopes, such as repo access for private repositories. Confirm that the token is stored securely as a secret in your repository settings and correctly referenced in your workflow YAML file.

2. Incorrect Token Usage in Workflow
   Make sure your workflow is configured to use the secret token properly. For example:

yaml
- name: Push changes
uses: ad-m/[email protected]
with:
github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Replace GITHUB_TOKEN with your custom token secret if you’re using a personal token with broader permissions.

1. Repository Permissions for the Bot
   Verify that the GitHub Actions bot or token has write permissions to the repository. If you’re using a personal access token, double-check that it has the repo scope enabled.

2. Workflow Configuration Issues
   Review your workflow YAML file to ensure that the steps for committing and pushing are correctly configured, and that the user identity (name and email) is properly set.

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