Actions not triggering even with Custom App

[Paddy-Farmeye]

Hi @peter-evans,

I'm aware of the original issue tracking the problem I'm having, and I've read your very good corresponding documentation. I've gone ahead and created a Github App and used it to provide a token ... however, I still can't seem to get actions to trigger.

My flow is as follows:

• scheduled github action to create a PR with automerge enabled
• when a PR is created two actions should occur (mergeable check, and build/test)

The PR gets created with automerge enabled as expected.
The mergeable check also runs as expected ... but the build_and_test never kicks off.

I feel I've probably just missed something small and was hoping someone could just cast their eye over my config.

My config

Automerge PR config

name: Release
on:
  # update the main branch at 8pm (UTC)
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 20 * * 1-4'
  # or update the main branch manually
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  createPullRequest:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout 🛎
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          ref: main
          fetch-tags: true
          fetch-depth: 0

      - name: Fetch new tag version
        run: |
          git fetch --tags --prune --prune-tags
          VERSION=`git tag --sort=-creatordate | head -1`
          echo "Version ${VERSION}"

          #replace . with space so can split into an array
          VERSION_BITS=(${VERSION//./ })

          VNUM1=${VERSION_BITS[0]}
          VNUM2=${VERSION_BITS[1]}
          VNUM3=${VERSION_BITS[2]}
          VNUM3=$((VNUM3+1))

          #create new tag
          NEW_TAG="$VNUM1.$VNUM2.$VNUM3"

          echo "New Version ${NEW_TAG}"
          echo "version=${NEW_TAG}" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
          id: fetch-tag-version

      - name: Fetch Token
        uses: tibdex/github-app-token@v1
        id: generate-token
        with:
          app_id: ${{ secrets.TOKEN_APP_ID }}
          private_key: ${{ secrets.TOKEN_PRIVATE_KEY }}

      - name: Update main branch
        run: |
          git reset --hard origin/devel

      - name: Create Pull Request
        id: cpr
        uses: peter-evans/create-pull-request@v5
        with:
          token: ${{ steps.generate-token.outputs.token }}
          commit-message: Release ${{ steps.fetch-tag-version.outputs.version }}
          committer: GitHub <[email protected]>
          author: ${{ github.actor }} <${{ github.actor }}@users.noreply.github.com>
          signoff: false
          branch: release
          base: main
          delete-branch: true
          title: Release ${{ steps.fetch-tag-version.outputs.version }}
          body: Release ${{ steps.fetch-tag-version.outputs.version }}
          draft: false

      - name: Pull Request Automerge
        if: steps.cpr.outputs.pull-request-operation == 'created'
        uses: peter-evans/enable-pull-request-automerge@v3
        with:
          pull-request-number: ${{ steps.cpr.outputs.pull-request-number }}
          merge-method: merge

build_and_test config

name: PR build Checks

on:
 pull_request:
    branches:
      - devel
      - release

jobs:
  build_and_test:

    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
    - name: Set up JDK 1.8
      uses: actions/setup-java@v1
      with:
        java-version: 11

    - name: Cache the Maven packages to speed up build
      uses: actions/cache@v1
      with:
        path: ~/.m2
        key: ${{ runner.os }}-m2-${{ hashFiles('**/pom.xml') }}
        restore-keys: ${{ runner.os }}-m2     
  
    - name: Build and test project with Maven
      run: mvn -B package --file pom.xml

Sorry for the inconvenience, hopefully it's something small I've overlooked.
Thank you

[Paddy-Farmeye]

As you suggested I have set the following permissions on my Github App:

Under Repository permissions: Contents select Access: Read & write.
Under Repository permissions: Pull requests select Access: Read & write.
Under Organization permissions: Members select Access: Read-only.

But I'm wondering if under Repository, do I also need to set values for Actions and/or Checks and/or Commit statuses?, ref:

[peter-evans]

Hi @Paddy-Farmeye

It looks like the permissions are correct on the app. Is the app installed on the repository where the workflow is running?

Please could you show me a larger screenshot of the PR in GitHub so I can see other details, or a link to it if it's public.

[Paddy-Farmeye]

Hi @peter-evans Yes, the app is installed and runs in the action.

A larger screenshot of the PR:

[peter-evans]

Ah, I see the problem. The pull request workflow is not triggering because the branches you specified are not the target of the PR. It's the target branch, not the PR branch that you need to specify here:

on:
 pull_request:
    branches:
-     - devel
-     - release
+     - main

[Paddy-Farmeye]

Ah okay, let me give this a go and if all's good I'll close this issue, thanks.

[Paddy-Farmeye]

@peter-evans thunderbirds are go ... thanks for your time and prompt resolution.

[lcarva]

I'm ashamed to admit that I just ran into the same issue. Would you be willing to accept a doc change to warn future users about this pitfall?

[peter-evans]

I'm ashamed to admit that I just ran into the same issue. Would you be willing to accept a doc change to warn future users about this pitfall?

I'm really not sure where that would go in the docs. It's more of a general GitHub Actions usage issue, not really anything specific to this action. So I'll keep an eye out, and if lots of users encounter this then I might consider adding something to the docs.