Checkout Plus is a GitHub Action based on GitHub's actions/checkout action, with extra features added to simplify your build pipelines. Checkout Plus maintains full compatibility with actions/checkout and can be easily used as a drop-in replacement.

To avoid confusion with differing version numbers, Checkout Plus follows the same versioning as actions/checkout (beginning with v3.3.0), and this fork will integrate any new changes whenever a new release is made there.

Development on Checkout Plus is provided and supported by Cold Fusion, and we actively use it for all of our CI/CD pipelines here on GitHub.

Added Features

• Restore last modified timestamps

  Useful for incremental builds, enabling restore-mtime will ensure the timestamps of the files in your repository are consistently reset to the time of the commit they were last modified in after a clone/fetch. restore-mtime is fast even on large repositories, capable of processing 100K files in less than 8 seconds, and works with submodules as well!

• Cleaning of submodules

  The default GitHub checkout action has a long-standing open issue (actions/checkout#358) where it does not perform a git clean on any submodules. Checkout Plus will automatically recursively iterate (as desired) into your repository's submodules and run git clean on them when both clean: true is set and submodules is set to either true or recursive.

Quickstart

New Builders

If you are new to GitHub Actions, simply create an actions .yaml, and add the following line to it:

- uses: coldfusionjp/ghaction-checkout-plus@v3

Existing Checkout Action Builders

If you are already using GitHub's provided actions/checkout action, simply change the following line in your actions .yaml:

- uses: actions/checkout@v3

to be:

- uses: coldfusionjp/ghaction-checkout-plus@v3

Any parameters which are passed to actions/checkout can continue to be used as-is with Checkout Plus.

Detailed Usage

- uses: coldfusionjp/ghaction-checkout-plus@v3
  with:
    # Repository name with owner. For example, coldfusionjp/ghaction-checkout-plus
    # Default: ${{ github.repository }}
    repository: ''

    # The branch, tag or SHA to checkout. When checking out the repository that
    # triggered a workflow, this defaults to the reference or SHA for that event.
    # Otherwise, uses the default branch.
    ref: ''

    # Personal access token (PAT) used to fetch the repository. The PAT is configured
    # with the local git config, which enables your scripts to run authenticated git
    # commands. The post-job step removes the PAT.
    #
    # We recommend using a service account with the least permissions necessary. Also
    # when generating a new PAT, select the least scopes necessary.
    #
    # Learn more about creating and using encrypted secrets:
    # - https://help.github.com/en/actions/automating-your-workflow-with-github-actions/creating-and-using-encrypted-secrets
    #
    # Default: ${{ github.token }}
    token: ''

    # SSH key used to fetch the repository. The SSH key is configured with the local
    # git config, which enables your scripts to run authenticated git commands. The
    # post-job step removes the SSH key.
    #
    # We recommend using a service account with the least permissions necessary.
    #
    # Learn more about creating and using encrypted secrets:
    # - https://help.github.com/en/actions/automating-your-workflow-with-github-actions/creating-and-using-encrypted-secrets
    ssh-key: ''

    # Known hosts in addition to the user and global host key database. The public SSH
    # keys for a host may be obtained using the utility `ssh-keyscan`. For example,
    # `ssh-keyscan github.com`. The public key for github.com is always implicitly
    # added.
    ssh-known-hosts: ''

    # Whether to perform strict host key checking. When true, adds the options
    # `StrictHostKeyChecking=yes` and `CheckHostIP=no` to the SSH command line. Use
    # the input `ssh-known-hosts` to configure additional hosts.
    # Default: true
    ssh-strict: ''

    # Whether to configure the token or SSH key with the local git config
    # Default: true
    persist-credentials: ''

    # Relative path under $GITHUB_WORKSPACE to place the repository
    path: ''

    # Whether to execute `git clean -ffdx && git reset --hard HEAD` before fetching
    # Default: true
    clean: ''

    # Whether to restore the last modification time of the files in the repository
    # based on the date of the most recent commit that modified them.
    #
    # Enabling this feature is useful in CI/CD environments where files may be
    # incorrectly identified as being modified when they are not, preventing
    # incremental builds from working as expected. Git does not preserve the original
    # timestamp of committed files, and whenever repositories are cloned, or
    # branches/files are checked out, file timestamps are reset to the current date.
    # This feature will reset the timestamp of the file to the date of the most recent
    # commit where it was last modified, providing a consistent timestamp necessary
    # for incremental builds.
    #
    # Restoring the last modification time is also automatically performed for
    # submodules as desired, based on the submodules setting.
    #
    # In order to properly restore the last modification time of files in the
    # repository, the full history (a deep clone) is required. When `restore-mtime` is
    # enabled, `fetch-depth` will instead default to `0` to fetch the complete history
    # (however, this can be overridden if desired).
    #
    # Default: false
    restore-mtime: ''

    # Do a sparse checkout on given patterns. Each pattern should be separated with
    # new lines
    # Default: null
    sparse-checkout: ''

    # Specifies whether to use cone-mode when doing a sparse checkout.
    # Default: true
    sparse-checkout-cone-mode: ''

    # Number of commits to fetch. 0 indicates all history for all branches and tags.
    # Default: 1
    fetch-depth: ''

    # Whether to download Git-LFS files
    # Default: false
    lfs: ''

    # Whether to checkout submodules: `true` to checkout submodules or `recursive` to
    # recursively checkout submodules.
    #
    # When the `ssh-key` input is not provided, SSH URLs beginning with
    # `git@github.com:` are converted to HTTPS.
    #
    # Default: false
    submodules: ''

    # Add repository path as safe.directory for Git global config by running `git
    # config --global --add safe.directory <path>`
    # Default: true
    set-safe-directory: ''

    # The base URL for the GitHub instance that you are trying to clone from, will use
    # environment defaults to fetch from the same instance that the workflow is
    # running from unless specified. Example URLs are https://github.com or
    # https://my-ghes-server.example.com
    github-server-url: ''

Scenarios

• Fetch only the root files
• Fetch only the root files and .github and src folder
• Fetch only a single file
• Fetch all history for all tags and branches
• Checkout a different branch
• Checkout HEAD^
• Checkout multiple repos (side by side)
• Checkout multiple repos (nested)
• Checkout multiple repos (private)
• Checkout pull request HEAD commit instead of merge commit
• Checkout pull request on closed event
• Push a commit using the built-in token

Fetch only the root files

- uses: actions/checkout@v3
  with:
    sparse-checkout: .

Fetch only the root files and .github and src folder

- uses: actions/checkout@v3
  with:
    sparse-checkout: |
      .github
      src

Fetch only a single file

- uses: actions/checkout@v3
  with:
    sparse-checkout: |
      README.md
    sparse-checkout-cone-mode: false

Fetch all history for all tags and branches

- uses: coldfusionjp/ghaction-checkout-plus@v3
  with:
    fetch-depth: 0

Checkout a different branch

- uses: coldfusionjp/ghaction-checkout-plus@v3
  with:
    ref: my-branch

Checkout HEAD^

- uses: coldfusionjp/ghaction-checkout-plus@v3
  with:
    fetch-depth: 2
- run: git checkout HEAD^

Checkout multiple repos (side by side)

- name: Checkout
  uses: coldfusionjp/ghaction-checkout-plus@v3
  with:
    path: main

- name: Checkout tools repo
  uses: coldfusionjp/ghaction-checkout-plus@v3
  with:
    repository: my-org/my-tools
    path: my-tools

• If your secondary repository is private you will need to add the option noted in Checkout multiple repos (private)

Checkout multiple repos (nested)

- name: Checkout
  uses: coldfusionjp/ghaction-checkout-plus@v3

- name: Checkout tools repo
  uses: coldfusionjp/ghaction-checkout-plus@v3
  with:
    repository: my-org/my-tools
    path: my-tools

• If your secondary repository is private you will need to add the option noted in Checkout multiple repos (private)

Checkout multiple repos (private)

- name: Checkout
  uses: coldfusionjp/ghaction-checkout-plus@v3
  with:
    path: main

- name: Checkout private tools
  uses: coldfusionjp/ghaction-checkout-plus@v3
  with:
    repository: my-org/my-private-tools
    token: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT }} # `GH_PAT` is a secret that contains your PAT
    path: my-tools

• ${{ github.token }} is scoped to the current repository, so if you want to checkout a different repository that is private you will need to provide your own PAT.

Checkout pull request HEAD commit instead of merge commit

- uses: coldfusionjp/ghaction-checkout-plus@v3
  with:
    ref: ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.sha }}

Checkout pull request on closed event

on:
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]
    types: [opened, synchronize, closed]
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: coldfusionjp/ghaction-checkout-plus@v3

Push a commit using the built-in token

on: push
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: coldfusionjp/ghaction-checkout-plus@v3
      - run: |
          date > generated.txt
          git config user.name github-actions
          git config user.email github-actions@github.com
          git add .
          git commit -m "generated"
          git push

License

While the scripts and documentation specific to this project are released under the MIT License, this project integrates components from other projects which use different licenses. Please see the included NOTICE for full details.