Reuse GitHub Actions workflows across repositories

On first run, ghat will copy a workflow from another GitHub repo. Successive runs will update the existing workflows and preserve the env variables.

1. Write workflows once, use them in any repository
2. Update your workflows without copy-pasting YAML
3. Preserve local env variables
4. Customize workflows before importing them

The good parts:

• ghat does not run every time on your CI
• ghat doesn't have to be a dependency of your project
• ghat is node-based, but can install any type of workflows
• Workflow changes need to be committed by the user, so you don't have to worry about it suddenly breaking "because of a dependency"

Requirements:

• git
• npm or yarn (you can use npx ghat ... or yarn dlx ghat ... to run it without installing it)
• a writable ~/.degit cache folder as required by degit

ghat uses degit to fetch any repository or specific YAML file/folder within it. Below you can find some examples using the workflows in fregante/ghatemplates.

$ ghat --help

  Description
    Reuse GitHub Actions workflows across repositories

  Usage
    $ ghat <source> [options]

  Options
    --exclude        Any part of the YAML file to be removed (can be repeated)
    --set            Value to add (can be repeated). The value is interpreted as YAML/JSON. Writing JSON on the CLI is tricky, so you might want to wrap the whole flag value
    -v, --version    Displays current version
    -h, --help       Displays this message

  Examples
    $ ghat fregante/ghatemplates/node
    $ ghat fregante/ghatemplates/node --exclude jobs.Build --exclude jobs.Test
    $ ghat fregante/ghatemplates/node --set on=push
    $ ghat fregante/ghatemplates/node --set 'jobs.Test.container=node:12.15'
    $ ghat fregante/ghatemplates/node-multi --set jobs.build.strategy.matrix.node-version=\[8.x,10.x\]
    $ ghat fregante/ghatemplates/node/build.yml

If you provide a user/repo address, ghat will fetch the repository and look for *.yml/*.yaml files at the top level. If none are found, it will assume you want to copy the repo’s active workflows from .github/workflows

npx ghat fregante/ghat
# Copies *.yml OR .github/workflows/*.yml

npx ghat fregante/ghatemplates/node
# Copies node/*.yml into the local .github/workflows. It's NOT recursive

npx ghat fregante/ghatemplates/node/ci.yml
# Copies node/ci.yml into the local .github/workflows/ci.yml

You can exclude any property from the template by using the --exclude <path> flag, multiple times.

• path is parsed by dot-prop, so refer to its documentation.

--exclude on.schedule

You can set/overwrite any value with the --set <path>=<value> flag, multiple times.

• path is parsed by dot-prop, so refer to its documentation.
• value is a YAML/JSON value passed directly to the YAML parser.

Note: writing JSON on the command line is a little tricky, so if you're running into errors, try wrapping the whole flag value into a string, for example:

--set 'on.schedule=[{"cron": "42 17 * * 4"}]'

When you fetch a workflow that already exists locally, the local file will be overridden, except for the top-level env object. For example:

env:
  ADJECTIVE: cool

# DO NOT EDIT BELOW - use `npx ghat fregante/workflows/demo`

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: echo My workflow is $ADJECTIVE

env:
  ADJECTIVE: the default

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: echo This new workflow is "$ADJECTIVE" since it was updated

Only the top-level env will be preserved, the rest will be updated.

env:
  ADJECTIVE: cool

# DO NOT EDIT BELOW - use `npx ghat fregante/workflows/demo`

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: echo This new workflow is "$ADJECTIVE" since it was updated

GitHub Actions Templating

I won’t pretend to know exactly what a Ghat is, but you should know check them out, they’re beautiful. 🇮🇳

MIT © Federico Brigante