Combined usage with actions/labeler

[jenssimon]

Are there recommendations how to use this action combined with actions/labeler?

Question

❓What happens when both workflows run at the same time?

Sometimes this configuration leads to moments like

github-actions bot added 🗂 foo 🗂 bar dependencies and removed 🗂 foo 🗂 bar labels 4 minutes ago

I think

• pull_request and pull_request_target - no difference between workflow execution for both events
• it could happen that both workflows run at the same time

I haven't checked yet if it makes sense to run both actions within the same workflow.

💡 I wonder if there is a recommendation how to use both actions within the same repo.

Example code

Currently I run this configuration for a project using a monorepo:

# .github/workflows/labeler.yml
name: Pull Request Labeler
on:
  - pull_request_target

jobs:
  triage:
    permissions:
      contents: read
      pull-requests: write
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/labeler@v4
        with:
          repo-token: "${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}"
          sync-labels: true

# .github/workflows/monorepo-pr-labeler-action.yml
name: Monorepo PR Repo Labeler
on:
  pull_request:
    paths:
    - services/**
    - packages/**

jobs:
  labelPR:
    name: Label PR With Repo(s)
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Monorepo PR Repo Labeler
        uses: TinkurLab/monorepo-pr-labeler-action@4.1.4
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          BASE_DIRS: 'services|packages'
        with:
          prefix: '🗂'
          separator: ' '

# .github/labeler.yml
dependencies:
  - '**/package.json'
  - ...

infra:
  - infrastructure/**/*
  - ...

ci:
  - .github/**
  - ...

So I can label changes for a PR on

• 🔀 dependencies
• ⚙️ ci
• 🗂 packages of the monorepo

[adamzolyak]

👋 hi @jenssimon. Thanks for sharing your feedback and question. I haven't used https://github.com/actions/labeler yet. I'm curious, why do you need the monorepo labeler and https://github.com/actions/labeler? Can https://github.com/actions/labeler also label the monorepos?

[jenssimon]

Hi @adamzolyak,

The answer is pretty easy.

TinkurLab/monorepo-pr-labeleler-action

• label packages in the monorepo that get touched by the PR

actions/labeler

I use this one to label the kind of changes, examples:

• frontend
• backend
• CSS
• translations
• dependencies
• schemas changed
• infrastructure changes (AWS)
• etc

So on the pull requests tab you can easily get an overview what has changed.

Globs pattern can be used to identify the kind of change

• changes on package.json or yarn.lock are most likely about dependencies
• changes on .github/ folder are ci topics
• any changes on **/*.css are labeled as css
• ...

So a really useful tool.

A backend dev might not be interested in reviewing CSS, ...

[jenssimon]

Can https://github.com/actions/labeler also label the monorepos?

I don't see an easy way to use actions/labeler to label monorepos as this action here does.
Maybe with generated config. But that feels a bit strange.

That's the reason why I use this action in combination with actions/labeler.

It's an action provided by GitHub. Maybe it's a great addition adding "monorepo labeling" to it. Only had a quick look on issues and PRs and haven't seen this topic there.

[kyhule]

@jenssimon Not sure if you have since solved this problem but I suspect your use of sync-labels: true is causing actions/labeler to remove the labels applied by TinkurLab/monorepo-pr-labeleler-action.

[jenssimon]

@kyhule You might be right. I see some activity regarding sync-labels (e.g. actions/labeler#112). Looks like there was a fix within actions/labeler@v5. Haven't checked in detail yet.

Haven't heard any complaints about missing labels for quite some time. The projects running on this setup are using the recent versions of the actions.

I will check and ask the team.

[kyhule]

I tested this theory with labeler running it before the monorepo labeler with sync-labels set to true in the same job and it didn't remove the label from the previous run. I tested using v5 so if it was the cause it isn't doing it anymore. I never tried reproducing it on an older version. I found your issue because I was seeing if I could somehow use both actions to remove labels created by monorepo labeler that are no longer applicable since this action doesn't have a sync feature.

[jenssimon]

Seems my described problems are gone since actions/labeler@v5.

So combined usage is as described in the PR description. But with:

    steps:
-      - uses: actions/labeler@v4
+      - uses: actions/labeler@v5 # or beyond
        with: