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I have a GitHub action running my unit tests for a web app. I run CodeClimate test reporting from this action.

CodeClimate requires two environment variables to be set for the report to be correctly sent. These are;

  • GIT_SHA
  • GIT_BRANCH

GitHub actions makes the git commit sha avaiable through the github context via github.sha so I can set an environment variable on the action like this;

env:
    GIT_SHA: ${{ github.sha }}

However github actions does not make the branch name available.

It does provide a default environment variable called GITHUB_REF this is the full ref but I understand that I can grab the short ref i.e. the branch name using this shorthand syntax $GITHUB_REF##*/

The problem I have is that I cannot set an env variable called GITHUB_BRANCH with this value $GITHUB_REF##*/

Does anyone how I might get the branch name and set it to the environment variable GIT_BRANCH so the CodeClimate test script would be able to use it.

Ultimately I want my env config to look like this:

env:
    GIT_SHA: <git commit sha>
    GIT_BRANCH: <current git branch>
MajorAtmosphere
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    Does this answer your question? [Getting current branch and commit hash in GitHub action](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/58886293/getting-current-branch-and-commit-hash-in-github-action) – anthony sottile Nov 17 '20 at 21:12
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    (so tl;dr, you don't need to do any special environment setup in github actions, the variables are already there) – anthony sottile Nov 17 '20 at 21:13
  • The variables are there correct, however not under the name that CodeClimate requires. Add it seems you cant set an environment based on the value of another. – MajorAtmosphere Nov 17 '20 at 21:40
  • `${{ env.GITHUB_BRANCH }}` for example should work – anthony sottile Nov 17 '20 at 22:03
  • It looks like setting `GIT_BRANCH: ${{ github.head_ref }}` may work. Although not sure this will work for a push to the main branch as that would be on the push event and not the pull_request event – MajorAtmosphere Nov 17 '20 at 22:25
  • @AnthonySottile GITHUB_BRANCH is not an environment variable that is already available – MajorAtmosphere Nov 17 '20 at 22:26

2 Answers2

9

Ultimately I want my env config to look like this:

env:
   GIT_SHA: <git commit sha>
   GIT_BRANCH: <current git branch>

You can achieve the same effect (setting the environment variables) not only in the workflow definition but by setting the variables dynamically in a dedicated workflow step. You can do it by environment files and built-in GITHUB_SHA and GITHUB_BRANCH variables:

jobs:
  set-env:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Set environment variables
        run: |
          echo "GIT_SHA=${GITHUB_SHA}" >> $GITHUB_ENV
          echo "GIT_BRANCH=${GITHUB_REF##*/}" >> $GITHUB_ENV
      - name: Use environment variables
        run: |
          echo "GIT_SHA=${GIT_SHA}"
          echo "GIT_BRANCH=${GIT_BRANCH}"

Executing the workflow should give you the output:

enter image description here

Marcin Kłopotek
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3

Indeed, rather than using GITHUB_REF, it could be useful to use GITHUB_HEAD_REF or GITHUB_BASE_REF to figure out the real branch names (above all, if workflow is associated to a PR):

Examples of output:

    GITHUB_REF="refs/pull/4/merge"
    GITHUB_BASE_REF="main"
    GITHUB_HEAD_REF="key_advertisement"

More information here: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/learn-github-actions/contexts#github-context

Sergio Arroutbi
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