GitHub Sync

A GitHub Action for syncing two repositories using force push.

Features

• Sync branches between two GitHub repositories
• Sync branches from one remote repository to another
• GitHub action can be triggered on a timer or on push
• To push to a remote repository, please checkout git-sync
• Support syncing tags.

Usage

This action operates in two "modes", a local mode (using the current GitHub repository as a source of truth where the workflow is running) or remote mode to sync two repositories outside of the workflow repo.

Local mode

Create a personal access token and add to repository's secret as PAT

GitHub Actions

# File: .github/workflows/repo-sync.yml

on:
  schedule:
  - cron:  "*/15 * * * *"
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  repo-sync:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      with:
        persist-credentials: false
    - name: repo-sync
      uses: repo-sync/github-sync@v2
      with:
        source_repo: ""
        source_branch: ""
        destination_branch: ""
        github_token: ${{ secrets.PAT }}

If source_repo is private or with another provider, either (1) use an authenticated HTTPS repo clone url like https://${access_token}@github.com/owner/repository.git or (2) set a SSH_PRIVATE_KEY secret environment variable and use the SSH clone url

Remote mode

Set the requisite secrets for syncing two remote repositories on the GitHub repository that will execute this action.

# File: .github/workflows/repo-sync.yml
on:
  schedule:
  - cron:  "*/15 * * * *"
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  repo-sync:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - env:
        SOURCE_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.SOURCE_TOKEN }}
      run: |
        git clone https://$SOURCE_TOKEN@<remote-host>/user/foo-repo.git foo-repo/
    - name: repo-sync
      uses: repo-sync/github-sync@v2
      working-directory: ./foo-repo
      with:
        source_repo: "user1/foo-repo"
        source_host: github.com # If omitted, defaults to github.com
        source_token: ${{ secrets.SOURCE_TOKEN }}
        source_user: "user1"
        source_branch: "main"
        destination_repo: "user2/bar-repo"
        destination_host: gitlab.com
        destination_user: oauth2
        destination_token: ${{ secrets.DESTINATION_TOKEN }}
        destination_branch: "main"

Workflow overwriting

If destination_branch and the branch where you will create this workflow will be the same, The workflow (and all files) will be overwritten by source_branch files. A potential solution is: Create a new branch with the actions file and make it the default branch.

Advanced Usage: Sync all branches

1. Make a backup
2. Create a new branch in your repo (destination repo), it should not share the name with any branch in source repo
3. Make the new branch the default branch under repo settings
4. Use * for both source_branch and destination_branch
5. Optionally, you can force sync all tags:

   with:
     sync_tags: "true"
   

This will force sync ALL branches to match source repo. Branches that are created only in the destination repo will not be affected but all the other branches will be hard reset to match source repo. ⚠️ This does mean if upstream ever creates a branch that shares the name, your changes will be gone.

Contributors ✨

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):

Wei He 💻 📖 🎨 🤔

Zeke Sikelianos 📖 🤔

Alex Page 🐛

xtqqczze 💻 📖

Kay Harrison-Sims 🐛

Gibby 💻

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!