🚀 GitHub Action for creating Pull Requests

GitHub Action that will create a pull request from the currently selected branch.

📦 Available on

• Docker Hub: devopsinfra/action-pull-request:latest
• GitHub Packages: ghcr.io/devops-infra/action-pull-request:latest

✨ Features

• Creates pull request if triggered from a current branch or any specified by source_branch to a target_branch
• Title and body of a pull request can be specified with title and body
• Can assign assignee, reviewer, one or more label, a milestone or mark it as a draft
• Can replace any old_string inside a pull request template with a new_string. Or put commits' subjects in place of old_string
• When get_diff is true will add list of commits in place of <!-- Diff commits --> and list of modified files in place of <!-- Diff files --> in a pull request template
• When allow_no_diff is set to true will continue execution and create pull request even if both branches have no differences, e.g. having only a merge commit
• Supports both amd64 and arm64 architectures

🔗 Related Actions

Useful in combination with my other action devops-infra/action-commit-push.

Both actions are compatible when you use actions/checkout with a custom path:

• set repository_path in devops-infra/action-commit-push
• set the same repository_path in devops-infra/action-pull-request

This action isolates global Git config in a temporary file (via GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL) to avoid modifying runner/user-level Git config.

📊 Badges

🏷️ Version Tags: vX, vX.Y, vX.Y.Z

This action supports three tag levels for flexible versioning:

• vX: latest patch of the major version (e.g., v1).
• vX.Y: latest patch of the minor version (e.g., v1.2).
• vX.Y.Z: fixed to a specific release (e.g., v1.2.3).

📖 API Reference

    - name: Run the Action
      uses: devops-infra/action-pull-request@v1.2.0
      with:
        github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        repository: devops-infra/action-pull-request
        repository_path: .
        source_branch: development
        target_branch: master
        title: My pull request
        template: .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md
        body: "**Automated pull request**"
        reviewer: octocat
        assignee: octocat
        label: enhancement
        milestone: My milestone
        draft: true
        old_string: "<!-- Add your description here -->"
        new_string: "** Automatic pull request**"
        get_diff: true
        ignore_users: "dependabot"
        allow_no_diff: false
        max_body_bytes: 65000
        max_diff_lines: 0

🔧 Input Parameters

Input Variable	Required	Default	Description
github_token	Yes	""	GitHub token ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
repository	No	${{ github.repository }}	Target repository in owner/name format used for API calls and git remote auth
repository_path	No	.	Relative path under GITHUB_WORKSPACE to the checked-out repository
source_branch	No	current branch	Name of the source branch
target_branch	No	master	Name of the target branch. Change it if you use main
title	No	subject of the first commit	Pull request title
template	No	""	Template file location
body	No	list of commits	Pull request body
reviewer	No	""	Reviewer's username
assignee	No	""	Assignee's usernames
label	No	""	Labels to apply, comma separated
milestone	No	""	Milestone
draft	No	false	Whether to mark it as a draft
old_string	No	""	Old string for the replacement in the template
new_string	No	""	New string for the replacement in the template. If not specified, but old_string was, it will gather commits subjects
get_diff	No	false	Whether to replace predefined comments with differences between branches - see details below
ignore_users	No	"dependabot"	List of users to ignore, comma separated
allow_no_diff	No	false	Allows to continue on merge commits with no diffs
max_body_bytes	No	65000	Maximum PR body size in bytes before overflow is posted as managed PR comments
max_diff_lines	No	0	Maximum lines per generated diff section (0 means unlimited)

🔐 Required Workflow Permissions

Set explicit job/workflow token permissions when using this action:

permissions:
  contents: read
  pull-requests: write
  issues: write

• contents: read is required to read repository state.
• pull-requests: write is required to create and update pull requests.
• issues: write is required when managed overflow comments are created, updated, or deleted (including cleanup on later runs).

📤 Output Parameters

Output	Description
url	Pull request URL
pr_number	Number of GitHub pull request

➿ How get_diff works

In previous versions occurrences of following strings in a template result with replacing them with list of commits and list of modified files (<!-- Diff commits --> and <!-- Diff files -->).

Now this action will expect to have three types of comment blocks. Meaning anything between START and END comment will get replaced. This is especially important when updating pull request with new commits.

• <!-- Diff summary - START --> and <!-- Diff summary - END --> - show first lines of each commit in the pull request
• <!-- Diff commits - START --> and <!-- Diff commits - END --> - show graph of commits in the pull request, with authors' info and time
• <!-- Diff files - START --> and <!-- Diff files - END --> - show list of modified files

When the generated PR body exceeds max_body_bytes, the action keeps the main body within the configured size and publishes remaining content in managed PR comments. Managed comments are updated/deleted on subsequent runs.

Set max_diff_lines to cap each generated diff section before insertion.

If your template uses old comment strings it will try to adjust them in the pull request body to a new standard when pull request is created. It will not modify the template.

CAUTION: Remember to not use default fetch-depth for actions/checkout action. Rather set it to 0 - see example below.

💻 Usage Examples

Red areas show fields that can be dynamically expanded based on commits to the current branch. Blue areas show fields that can be set in action configuration.

📝 Basic Example

Create pull request for non-master branches:

name: Run the Action
on:
  push:
    branches-ignore: master

permissions:
  contents: read
  pull-requests: write
  issues: write

jobs:
  action-pull-request:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v5

      - name: Create pull request
        uses: devops-infra/action-pull-request@v1.2.0
        with:
          github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          title: Automatic pull request

🔀 Advanced Example

Use first commit as a title and part of body, add a label based on a branch name, add git differences in the template:

name: Run the Action
on:
  push:
    branches-ignore: master

permissions:
  contents: read
  pull-requests: write
  issues: write

jobs:
  action-pull-request:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v5
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
          path: repo

      - name: Run the Action
        if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/heads/feature')
        uses: devops-infra/action-pull-request@v1.2.0
        with:
          github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          repository: ${{ github.repository }}
          repository_path: repo
          title: ${{ github.event.commits[0].message }}
          assignee: ${{ github.actor }}
          label: automatic,feature
          template: .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE/FEATURE.md
          old_string: "**Write your description here**"
          new_string: ${{ github.event.commits[0].message }}
          get_diff: true

🎯 Use specific version

Pick the tag level based on your stability needs:

• vX.Y.Z: exact immutable release (most predictable)
• vX.Y: latest patch within one minor line
• vX: latest patch within one major line

name: Run the Action
on:
  push:
    branches-ignore: master

permissions:
  contents: read
  pull-requests: write
  issues: write

jobs:
  action-pull-request:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v5

      - uses: devops-infra/action-pull-request@v1.2.0
        id: Pin patch version

      - uses: devops-infra/action-pull-request@v1.2
        id: Pin minor version

      - uses: devops-infra/action-pull-request@v1
        id: Pin major version

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! See CONTRIBUTING. This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

💬 Support

If you have any questions or need help, please:

• 📝 Create an issue
• 🌟 Star this repository if you find it useful!

Forking

To publish images from a fork, set these variables so Task uses your registry identities: DOCKER_USERNAME, DOCKER_ORG_NAME, GITHUB_USERNAME, GITHUB_ORG_NAME.

Two supported options (environment variables take precedence over .env):

# .env (local only, not committed)
DOCKER_USERNAME=your-dockerhub-user
DOCKER_ORG_NAME=your-dockerhub-org
GITHUB_USERNAME=your-github-user
GITHUB_ORG_NAME=your-github-org

# Shell override
DOCKER_USERNAME=your-dockerhub-user \
DOCKER_ORG_NAME=your-dockerhub-org \
GITHUB_USERNAME=your-github-user \
GITHUB_ORG_NAME=your-github-org \
task docker:build

Recommended setup:

• Local development: use a .env file.
• GitHub Actions: set repo variables for the four values above, and secrets for DOCKER_TOKEN and GITHUB_TOKEN.

Publish images without a release:

• Run the (Manual) Release Create workflow with build_only: true to build and push images without tagging a release.