Props bot: automate contributor attribution with Co-authored-by lines in PR Description #65587
Description
Currently, adding Co-authored-by lines manually to the commit message when merging a pull request is an extra step that can overlooked, leading to missed attributions for contributors. This process could be streamlined to improve the developer experience and ensure proper recognition for everyone involved.
We can leverage GitHub’s squash merge functionality, which allows us to customize the commit message by including both the PR title and description. By automatically maintaining the list of contributors in the PR description, the Co-authored-by lines would be automatically appended to the squash commit message during the merge.
Steps required
- Add an option to https://github.com/WordPress/props-bot-action/tree/trunk to output the Co-author lines as a step output.
- Set the default message for Squash Merge commits on this repo to include the Pull Request title and description.
- Implement the action, which could look like this:
name: Props Bot - Auto-update PR with Contributors
on:
# run conditions should remain the same as the ones in the current props-bot.yml workflow.
# https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/blob/trunk/.github/workflows/props-bot.yml#L3-L30
jobs:
update_coauthors:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout repository
uses: actions/checkout@v3
# Step 2: Use WordPress/props-bot-action to update the PR with co-authors
# Assume that the action sets a variable that can be consumed in the next step.
- name: Update PR with Contributors
id: props_bot
uses: WordPress/props-bot-action@trunk
with:
# Configure props-bot to add co-author lines
github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
# Step 3: Fetch the updated PR description and append the co-authors, ensuring they are at the bottom.
- name: Adjust PR Description for Co-authors
run: |
# Fetch the current PR description.
CURRENT_DESCRIPTION=$(gh pr view ${{ github.event.pull_request.number }} --json body --jq '.body')
# Remove any existing co-authored section to prevent duplicates.
CLEAN_DESCRIPTION=$(echo "$CURRENT_DESCRIPTION" | sed '/<!-- Co-authored-by section start -->/,/<!-- Co-authored-by section end -->/d')
# Fetch the new co-author lines from the output of the props-bot-action.
COAUTHOR_LINES="${{ steps.props_bot.outputs.coauthors }}"
# Insert delimiters and co-author lines at the bottom of the description.
NEW_DESCRIPTION="$CLEAN_DESCRIPTION\n\n<!-- Co-authored-by section start -->\n$COAUTHOR_LINES\n<!-- Co-authored-by section end -->"
# Update the PR with the new description.
gh pr edit ${{ github.event.pull_request.number }} --body "$NEW_DESCRIPTION"
cc. @desrosj