Github Actions

Introduction

I spent the weekend revisiting how to build a GitHub Action to automatically pull data from Clockify. It was a challenging experience that felt like my first time coding due to a series of small, avoidable mistakes. I had to piece together information from multiple sources and use ChatGPT to get my YAML formatted correctly.

Learning

The announcement of this book and its chapter on GitHub Actions inspired me to start this project again. I found this project workflow especially helpful.

1. One useful takeaway was the idea of using a DESCRIPTION file for projects, even if they’re not packages. I used an renv workflow, but encountered challenges installing the Rcpp package on the remote machine. I wonder if the setup with a DESCRIPTION file might have prevented some of these issues.

2. If you’re writing data to your repository, you need to provide write permissions. GitHub offers a default token (GITHUB_TOKEN) for GitHub Actions, which simplifies this process. Initially, I tried using my own PAT, but thanks to ChatGPT, I learned to switch to the default GITHUB_TOKEN instead:

   Tip: GitHub provides a default GITHUB_TOKEN for Actions that usually works for most repositories, eliminating the need for a custom PAT. Replace any custom PAT reference in the git-auto-commit-action step with ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}.

Conclusion

I worked through several challenges, and hopefully, the next time I attempt this, it won’t be quite as difficult.