Commit & push work fine on a manual Run workflow but not on a cron scheduled one

[Kamal-Moha]

Hi I'm trying to create a github actions that runs on a cron scheduled time and use the git-auto-commit to handle the commit & push.
I'm facing the issue whereby git-auto-commit is working fine for manual run workflow and actually pushing changes to repo, but it doesn't work as expected with the cron scheduled.

Below is my yml file

name: Data Collection & Sync

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  
  schedule:
    - cron: "11 17 * * *" # Run everyday at 17:11

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: write
    steps:

      - name: checkout repo content
        uses: actions/checkout@v4 # checkout the repository content to github runner
        with:
          ref: ${{ github.head_ref }}

      - name: setup python
        uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: '3.12' # install the python version needed
          
      - name: install python packages
        run: |
          python -m pip install --upgrade pip
          pip install -r actions_requirements.txt
          
      - name: execute py script # run main.py
        env:
          AUTH_KEY: ${{ secrets.AUTH_KEY }}
          BASE_URL: ${{ secrets.BASE_URL }}
        run: |
          python wallet_accts.py 
          python acct_df.py 
      
      - name: Commit & Push
        uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v5
        with:
          commit_message: 'Synced data from API'

When I manually run this workflow, it works perfectly. But when the cron scheduled action runs, I get the below error;
Working tree clean. Nothing to commit.

Please help

[stefanzweifel]

Hi @Kamal-Moha,

I assume these are the runs that cause the problems?

• https://github.com/Kamal-Moha/WiTaxi-Pay-Analytics-Bhadala/actions/runs/11445460833/job/31842561667
• https://github.com/Kamal-Moha/WiTaxi-Pay-Analytics-Bhadala/actions/runs/11444835473/job/31840600269

From what I can see in the logs and from your workflow file: everything looks alright.
You use set the right permissions and use ref: ${{ github.head_ref }}.

Are you 100% sure, that your Python scripts always changes files?
Could you modify your workflow to run git status after running the Python scripts? This should give us some output, if the problem really is inside git-auto-commit or somewhere else.

name: Data Collection & Sync

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  
  schedule:
    - cron: '11 17 * * *' # Run everyday at 06:08

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: write
    steps:

      - name: checkout repo content
        uses: actions/checkout@v4 # checkout the repository content to github runner
        with:
          ref: ${{ github.head_ref }}

      - name: setup python
        uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: '3.12' # install the python version needed
          
      - name: install python packages
        run: |
          python -m pip install --upgrade pip
          pip install -r actions_requirements.txt
          
      - name: execute py script # run main.py
        env:
          AUTH_KEY: ${{ secrets.AUTH_KEY }}
          BASE_URL: ${{ secrets.BASE_URL }}
        run: |
          python wallet_accts.py 
          python acct_df.py 
+   
+     - run: git status
+
      - name: Commit & Push
        uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v5
        with:
          commit_message: 'Synced data from API'
        

[Kamal-Moha]

YES I'm 100% sure that those two python scripts actually create and save a dataframe in github

python wallet_accts.py executes - df.to_csv('Data/data.csv', index=False)
python acct_df.py executes - acct_df.to_csv('Data/accts_data.csv', index=False)

And when I run the workflow manually, both dataframes get created & saved in the proper directory.

I have included a git status and will keep you posted on what I get.

[Kamal-Moha]

Hi @stefanzweifel, I have included git status and this is what it says in the logs;

I'm still seeing the "nothing to commit, working tree clean" and I honestly don't know why I'm getting this. How it works with manual run and not the scheduled?

Need further help.

[Kamal-Moha]

@stefanzweifel No your comment wasn't negative in any way, It was actually a good comment that made me dig deep into a few things & proofread my code.

git-auto-commit isn't aware, how the workflow is being triggered. It doesn't know if it was through a schedule, manually or through a git-commit.

Makes sense.

        else
            _set_github_output "changes_detected" "false"

            echo "Working tree clean. Nothing to commit.";
        fi
    else
        _set_github_output "changes_detected" "false"

        echo "Working tree clean. Nothing to commit.";

From the above code, I see that I'm in the else part of this clause change_detected is false. And the reason it's false is because the new csv file I'm creating in that action is not different from the existing file(previous commit/push) thus changes_detected is false. Please tell me if that's right.

Let me also tell you that YES the csv file I'm creating might sometimes not have any detectable changes from the existing file. Does that mean in that case, git-auto-commit won't be able to push anything to github? Does git-auto-commit only push when changes are detected? And does that mean, just because the csv file isn't pushed, it doesn't mean scheduled github isn't working?

This is insightful.

Let me also briefly describe what I'm trying to do with this project. I want to create a scheduled cron job that runs every night at 11:55pm. The task is to have the python scripts request data from an API, manipulate that data & save it into a dataframe in the "Data" directory. That data is then used to make changes on a live dashboard. That's what I'm trying to do here.

Thanks!

[stefanzweifel]

From the above code, I see that I'm in the else part of this clause change_detected is false. And the reason it's false is because the new csv file I'm creating in that action is not different from the existing file(previous commit/push) thus changes_detected is false. Please tell me if that's right.

Yeah, that's correct.

Let me also tell you that YES the csv file I'm creating might sometimes not have any detectable changes from the existing file. Does that mean in that case, git-auto-commit won't be able to push anything to github?

Correct. If the file doesn't change, then git-auto-commit can't commit any changes and can't push them to GitHub.

Does git-auto-commit only push when changes are detected?

Correct.

And does that mean, just because the csv file isn't pushed, it doesn't mean scheduled github isn't working?

Correct. This workflow for example didn't cause an error.
https://github.com/Kamal-Moha/WiTaxi-Pay-Analytics-Bhadala/actions/runs/11458033202/job/31879574518

It's just that the CSV was not changed and therefore no changes were detected. Therefore nothing in the repo could be updated.

[Kamal-Moha]

Hi @stefanzweifel,
Finally, the scheduled github action was able to make a push. Thanks man, you have been super helpful.

Could you please tell me how I can include the time & date in my commit message. For example, having something like "Data Collected & synced from API - {date} {time}". How can I have that in the yml file?

[stefanzweifel]

@Kamal-Moha You have to add a dedicated step to calculate the commit message. Here's an example, on how to add current date and time to the commit message.

name: Data Collection & Sync

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  
  schedule:
    - cron: '05 16 * * *' # Run everyday at 06:08

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: write
    steps:

      - name: checkout repo content
        uses: actions/checkout@v4 # checkout the repository content to github runner
        with:
          ref: ${{ github.head_ref }}

      - name: setup python
        uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: '3.12' # install the python version needed
          
      - name: install python packages
        run: |
          python -m pip install --upgrade pip
          pip install -r actions_requirements.txt
          
      - name: execute py script # run main.py
        env:
          AUTH_KEY: ${{ secrets.AUTH_KEY }}
          BASE_URL: ${{ secrets.BASE_URL }}
        run: |
          python wallet_accts.py 
          python acct_df.py 
          
+     - name: Set commit message
+       id: commit_message_step
+       run: echo commit_message="Synced data from API" $(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT

      - name: Commit & Push
        uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v5
        with:
+         commit_message: ${{ steps.commit_message_step.outputs.commit_message }}

[Kamal-Moha]

Thank you @stefanzweifel, I have managed to include date & time in my commit message. Now I'm working on including Timezone but looks GHA doens't properly support timezones.

I have found this git-auto-commit package to very helpful. And Btw, I would like to suggest to have the text "Working tree clean. Nothing to commit." be changed to something more clear & descriptive like "Nothing to commit because no changes have been detected", I think that would be helpful for future people who might face this issue