Understanding and Resolving GitHub Actions Access Issues in Your Workflow

If you’re deploying automation with GitHub Actions and encounter permission errors during the commit process, you’re not alone. Many developers, especially those new to web development and automation, face similar challenges when setting up continuous update workflows. Here’s a comprehensive overview and guidance to help you troubleshoot and resolve these issues effectively.

The Scenario: Automating Data Updates with GitHub Actions

Imagine you’ve developed a scraper that extracts information from an external calendar and stores it in a JSON file. Your goal is to automatically update this JSON file on your GitHub repository so that your website can display the latest data. To achieve this, you’ve set up a GitHub Actions workflow that runs periodically, performs the scraping, and commits the updated JSON to your repository.

However, despite the workflow running successfully up to the point of attempting to commit changes, it consistently fails with a permission error indicating that it doesn’t have access to commit and push updates.

Common Cause: Authentication and Permissions

This issue typically stems from authentication problems related to the token or credentials used by GitHub Actions to make changes to the repository. Even if you’ve generated a personal access token, it’s crucial to ensure that:

• The token has the correct scopes (e.g., repo or write access).
• It is properly configured in your workflow secrets.
• Your workflow is correctly referencing the token.

Sample Error Message Breakdown

An example error you might encounter looks like this:

plaintext
Run git config --global user.name "github-actions[bot]"
[main bc70e68] Update ice times [auto]
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 26 deletions(-)
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 indicates that the automation bot configured to make commits (github-actions[bot]) lacks the necessary permissions to push changes to the repository.

Steps to Resolve the Issue

1. Verify Your Token and Secrets
2. Ensure you’ve created a Personal Access Token (PAT) with the repo scope (or appropriate permissions).

3. Store this token securely as a secret in your repository settings (e.g., ACTIONS_TOKEN).

4. Update Your Workflow Configuration

5. Reference the secret correctly within your workflow YAML file:

“`yaml
– name