Create Pull Request

A GitHub action to create a pull request for changes to your repository in the actions workspace.

Changes to a repository in the Actions workspace persist between steps in a workflow. This action is designed to be used in conjunction with other steps that modify or add files to your repository. The changes will be automatically committed to a new branch and a pull request created.

Create Pull Request action will:

1. Check for repository changes in the Actions workspace. This includes:
   • untracked (new) files
   • tracked (modified) files
   • commits made during the workflow that have not been pushed
2. Commit all changes to a new branch, or update an existing pull request branch.
3. Create a pull request to merge the new branch into the base—the branch checked out in the workflow.

Documentation

• Concepts, guidelines and advanced usage
• Examples
• Updating from v1

Usage

      - name: Create Pull Request
        uses: peter-evans/create-pull-request@v2

You can also pin to a specific release version in the format @v2.x.x

Action inputs

All inputs are optional. If not set, sensible default values will be used.

Note: If you want pull requests created by this action to trigger an on: push or on: pull_request workflow then you cannot use the default GITHUB_TOKEN. See the documentation here for workarounds.

Name	Description	Default
token	GITHUB_TOKEN or a repo scoped PAT.	GITHUB_TOKEN
path	Relative path under GITHUB_WORKSPACE to the repository.	GITHUB_WORKSPACE
commit-message	The message to use when committing changes.	[create-pull-request] automated change
committer	The committer name and email address in the format Display Name <email@address.com>.	Defaults to the GitHub Actions bot user. See Committer and author for details.
author	The author name and email address in the format Display Name <email@address.com>.	Defaults to the GitHub Actions bot user. See Committer and author for details.
title	The title of the pull request.	Changes by create-pull-request action
body	The body of the pull request.	Automated changes by [create-pull-request](https://github.com/peter-evans/create-pull-request) GitHub action
labels	A comma separated list of labels.
assignees	A comma separated list of assignees (GitHub usernames).
reviewers	A comma separated list of reviewers (GitHub usernames) to request a review from.
team-reviewers	A comma separated list of GitHub teams to request a review from. A repo scoped PAT may be required. See this issue.
milestone	The number of the milestone to associate this pull request with.
project	Deprecated. See Create a project card for details.
project-column	Deprecated. See Create a project card for details.
draft	Create a draft pull request.	false
branch	The branch name. See Branch naming for details.	create-pull-request/patch
request-to-parent	Create the pull request in the parent repository of the checked out fork. See push pull request branches to a fork for details.	false
base	Sets the pull request base branch.	Defaults to the branch checked out in the workflow.
branch-suffix	The branch suffix type. Valid values are random, timestamp and short-commit-hash. See Branch naming for details.

Action outputs

The pull request number is output as both an environment variable and a step output. Note that in order to read the step output the action step must have an id.

      - name: Create Pull Request
        id: cpr
        uses: peter-evans/create-pull-request@v2
      - name: Check outputs
        run: |
          echo "Pull Request Number - ${{ env.PULL_REQUEST_NUMBER }}"
          echo "Pull Request Number - ${{ steps.cpr.outputs.pull-request-number }}"          

Checkout

This action expects repositories to be checked out with actions/checkout@v2.

If there is some reason you need to use actions/checkout@v1 the following step can be added to checkout the branch.

      - uses: actions/checkout@v1
      - run: git checkout "${GITHUB_REF:11}"

Branch naming

For branch naming there are two strategies. Create a fixed-name pull request branch that will be updated with new changes until it is merged or closed, OR, always create a new unique branch each time there are changes to be committed.

Strategy A - Create and update a pull request branch (default)

This strategy is the default behaviour of the action. The input branch defaults to create-pull-request/patch. Changes will be committed to this branch and a pull request created. Any subsequent changes will be committed to the same branch and reflected in the open pull request. If the pull request is merged or closed a new one will be created. If subsequent changes cause the branch to no longer differ from the base the pull request will be automatically closed and the branch deleted.

Strategy B - Always create a new pull request branch

For this strategy there are three options to suffix the branch name. The branch name is defined by the input branch and defaults to create-pull-request/patch. The following options are values for branch-suffix.

• random - Commits will be made to a branch suffixed with a random alpha-numeric string. This option should be used if multiple pull requests will be created during the execution of a workflow. e.g. create-pull-request/patch-6qj97jr, create-pull-request/patch-5jrjhvd

• timestamp - Commits will be made to a branch suffixed by a timestamp. e.g. create-pull-request/patch-1569322532, create-pull-request/patch-1569322552

• short-commit-hash - Commits will be made to a branch suffixed with the short SHA1 commit hash. e.g. create-pull-request/patch-fcdfb59, create-pull-request/patch-394710b

Ignoring files

If there are files or directories you want to ignore you can simply add them to a .gitignore file at the root of your repository. The action will respect this file.

Committer and author

If neither committer or author inputs are supplied the action will default to making commits that appear to be made by the GitHub Actions bot user.

The following configuration can be used to have commits authored by the user who triggered the workflow event.

      - name: Create Pull Request
        uses: peter-evans/create-pull-request@v2
        with:
          committer: GitHub <noreply@github.com>
          author: ${{ github.actor }} <${{ github.actor }}@users.noreply.github.com>

Controlling commits

As well as relying on the action to handle uncommitted changes, you can additionally make your own commits before the action runs.

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Create commits
        run: |
          git config user.name 'Peter Evans'
          git config user.email 'peter-evans@users.noreply.github.com'
          date +%s > report.txt
          git commit -am "Modify tracked file during workflow"
          date +%s > new-report.txt
          git add -A
          git commit -m "Add untracked file during workflow"          
      - name: Uncommitted change
        run: date +%s > report.txt
      - name: Create Pull Request
        uses: peter-evans/create-pull-request@v2

Create a project card

To create a project card for the pull request, pass the pull-request-number step output to create-or-update-project-card action.

      - name: Create Pull Request
        id: cpr
        uses: peter-evans/create-pull-request@v2

      - name: Create or Update Project Card
        uses: peter-evans/create-or-update-project-card@v1
        with:
          project-name: My project
          column-name: My column
          issue-number: ${{ steps.cpr.outputs.pull-request-number }}

Reference Example

The following workflow is a reference example that sets all the main inputs.

See examples for more realistic use cases.

name: Create Pull Request
on: push
jobs:
  createPullRequest:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Create report file
        run: date +%s > report.txt
      - name: Create Pull Request
        id: cpr
        uses: peter-evans/create-pull-request@v2
        with:
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          commit-message: Add report file
          committer: GitHub <noreply@github.com>
          author: ${{ github.actor }} <${{ github.actor }}@users.noreply.github.com>
          title: '[Example] Add report file'
          body: |
            New report
            - Contains *today's* date
            - Auto-generated by [create-pull-request][1]

            [1]: https://github.com/peter-evans/create-pull-request            
          labels: report, automated pr
          assignees: peter-evans
          reviewers: peter-evans
          team-reviewers: owners, maintainers
          milestone: 1
          draft: false
          branch: example-patches
          request-to-parent: false
      - name: Check outputs
        run: |
          echo "Pull Request Number - ${{ env.PULL_REQUEST_NUMBER }}"
          echo "Pull Request Number - ${{ steps.cpr.outputs.pull-request-number }}"          

An example based on the above reference configuration creates pull requests that look like this:

License

MIT