GitHub Project Date Manager Action

A GitHub Action that automatically manages dates for GitHub Projects, keeping features, tasks, and milestones in sync.

What This Action Does

• Syncs Feature Dates with Tasks: Sets feature start and target dates based on their subtasks
• Handles Missing Dates: Automatically assigns reasonable dates to tasks without dates
• Updates Milestones: Sets milestone due dates based on the latest target date of contained issues
• Respects Business Days: Ensures all dates fall on weekdays (skips weekends)
• Finds Relationships: Intelligently detects parent-child relationships between issues

Usage

Add this action to your workflow file (e.g., .github/workflows/update-dates.yml):

name: Update Project Dates

on:
  issues:
    types: [opened, edited, labeled, unlabeled, closed, reopened]
  project_card:
    types: [created, edited, moved]
  milestone:
    types: [created, edited, opened, closed, deleted]
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      feature_issue_number:
        description: 'Feature issue number to update'
        required: false
      milestone_number:
        description: 'Milestone number to update'
        required: false

jobs:
  update-dates:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Update Project Dates
        uses: nimling/github-date-manager-action@v1.0.0
        with:
          # Optional parameters (defaults should work for most cases)
          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          # feature-issue-number: 123  # To update a specific feature
          # milestone-number: 5        # To update a specific milestone

Requirements

Your GitHub Projects must have these fields:

• Start Date (Date type)
• Target Date (Date type)
• Duration (days) (Number type, optional)

How It Works

Feature & Task Relationship

The action recognizes parent-child relationships through:

• Issues labeled as "feature" containing task lists (e.g., - [ ] #123)
• Task issues that reference features (e.g., "Part of #456" in the body)
• Issues with the "task" label that reference features

Date Calculation Logic

1. For features:

   • Start date = earliest start date among all tasks
   • Target date = latest target date among all tasks

2. For tasks without dates:

   • If some tasks have dates, new tasks are scheduled after the latest one
   • If no tasks have dates, scheduling starts from today
   • Each task gets a default 1-day duration
   • All dates are adjusted to fall on weekdays

3. For milestones:

   • Due date = latest target date of any issue in the milestone

Inputs

Input	Description	Required	Default
github-token	GitHub token with repository access	Yes	${{ github.token }}
owner	Repository owner	No	Current repository owner
repo	Repository name	No	Current repository name
feature-issue-number	Specific feature issue to update	No
milestone-number	Specific milestone to update	No

License

MIT

Contributing

Pull requests and suggestions welcome!