vazco/github-actions-branch-name

Description

A simple github action for extracting the branch/tag name that triggered this action.

Why

Most actions and scripts in the marketplace do not work for pull requests. Github handles push and pull_request events differently and the branch name has to be extracted from a different environment variable.

Example usage

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v2
  - name: Extract branch name
    uses: vazco/github-actions-branch-name@v1
    id: branch
  - name: Echo branch name
    run: echo "${{ steps.branch.outputs.branch_name }}"

Note

As of this commit, this action only explicitly accounts for pull_request and push events. If other events do not behave like those, this action has to be extended.

Development

Clone the repo and install dependencies with npm ci. The action can be debugged by making/using the existing workflow in this repo (.github/workflows/debug.yml). After making changes build the action by running npm run build. The generated output has to be pushed to the repository too.