Create Automatically Updating Repo in GitHub

GitHub Actions

The GitHub actions are used for CI purposes. One job is auto update, which can be enabled as follows:

• Repo > Settings >
  • General >
    • Pull Requests > enable "Allow auto-merge".
    • Branches > Add classic branch protection rule
      • Branch name pattern: main
      • Enable "Require status checks to pass before merging".
  • Actions > General > Workflow permissions > enable "Allow GitHub Actions to create and approve pull requests"
    • If option is greyed out, then probably the project policy is dictated by the repository policy. Simply do this in repository settings then.
• Copy the workflow file from this project. The key configs are the "permissions" to include "contents: write, pull-requests: write" and the "auto-merge" step.

If you don't need a private module from the same repository, you  must delete the "Authenticate for private modules" job. Otherwise, the following steps are necessary:

• GitHub > Profile > Settings > Developer Settings > Personal Access Tokens > Tokens (classic) > Generate new token
  • Name: ACTIONS_TOKEN
  • Select scopes: "repo"
  • Copy the token
• Repo > Settings > Secrets and variables > Actions > New repository secret >
  • Name: MY_TOKEN
    • You need to set "environment: MY_TOKEN" in the workflow file to use its environment secrets
  • Environment Secrets > Add environment secret
    • Name: ACTIONS_TOKEN
    • Value:

Add this to the workflow file:

Private Go Repository Dependency

If you are developing with Go and need a private repository as a dependency, you need to tell the SDK to use SSH instead of HTTPS to get access.