have fetch_licenses workflow only update when new licenses not already in the PR #127
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Pull request overview
This PR updates the fetch-licenses workflow to compare changes against the PR branch (if it exists) instead of always comparing against the main branch. This prevents noisy daily updates to an existing PR when there are no actual license changes.
Changes:
- Added a step to determine the baseline branch (auto-update-licenses if PR exists, otherwise main)
- Updated git diff commands to compare against the determined baseline branch instead of the working directory
- Fixed a debug output command to correctly display the current branch name
Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)
.github/workflows/fetch-licenses.yaml:90
- The git diff command is comparing against a remote branch reference (origin/auto-update-licenses or origin/main), but the workflow only performs a checkout without fetching the remote branch first. When actions/checkout@v6 runs, it only fetches the current branch by default. This means that origin/auto-update-licenses may not be available locally for the diff command to use, which could cause the diff to fail or behave unexpectedly. Consider adding a fetch step after determining the baseline branch, or ensure that the baseline branch is fetched before performing the diff operations.
git diff --quiet "$BASE_REF" -- spdxexp/spdxlicenses/*.go && genfiles_changed=false
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| echo "Update Licenses PR exists, so diff against its branch origin/auto-update-licenses." | ||
| base_ref="origin/auto-update-licenses" | ||
| else | ||
| echo "Update Licenses PR does NOT exists, so diff against branch origin/main" |
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There's a grammatical error in this echo message. The word "exists" should be singular here, not "does NOT exists". It should be "does NOT exist".
| echo "Update Licenses PR does NOT exists, so diff against branch origin/main" | |
| echo "Update Licenses PR does NOT exist, so diff against branch origin/main" |
| src_changed=true | ||
| # --quiet: Exits with 1 if there are changes; otherwise, exits with 0 | ||
| git diff --quiet -- cmd/licenses.json cmd/exceptions.json && src_changed=false | ||
| git diff --quiet "$BASE_REF" -- cmd/licenses.json cmd/exceptions.json && src_changed=false |
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The git diff command is comparing against a remote branch reference (origin/auto-update-licenses or origin/main), but the workflow only performs a checkout without fetching the remote branch first. When actions/checkout@v6 runs, it only fetches the current branch by default. This means that origin/auto-update-licenses may not be available locally for the diff command to use, which could cause the diff to fail or behave unexpectedly. Consider adding a fetch step after determining the baseline branch, or ensure that the baseline branch is fetched before performing the diff operations.
This issue also appears in the following locations of the same file:
- line 90
Context
Fixes #126
Changes
Updates the workflow that runs nightly to update licenses to compare changes to the PR's branch if it exists and the main branch if it doesn't. This should eliminate the noisy comments in the PR's timeline that happen daily once the PR is created. It is more meaningful to only see changes when there are new licenses. It provides information on how often the licenses are actually changing.