derberg/manage-files-in-multiple-repositories

delete files in destination repo

Closed this issue · 12 comments

ReenigneArcher commented

Reason/Context

Please try answering few of those questions

  • Why we need this improvement?
  • How will this change help?
  • What is the motivation?

I am in process of combining two workflow files into one. One of the files will then be deleted. I would assume this action does not currently delete files from the destination repo (please correct me if I'm mistaken).

It would be preferable to have the files to delete specified by this action as I don't want to open additional PRs.

Description

Please try answering few of those questions

  • What changes have to be introduced?
  • Will this be a breaking change?
  • How could it be implemented/designed?

You could add a new input patterns_to_remove. Then try to delete the file in the destination repo, but don't fail if it doesn't exist.

derberg commented

Hehe, good timing. You created this issue 8 days ago, and I was writing about it 6 days ago asyncapi/.github#199 (comment) 😆

So yeah, this action does not support removal. It has simple behavior, copies changes to files (new or edits), and pastes in give repo where things need to be replicated.

I was thinking of modifying the code to also support the removal of files by basically detecting that file was deleted so it must be removed form the destination folder. But...but recently I had a use case when I had to remove a workflow file from 55 repos out of 62 and luckily found a contributor willing to do clean up. I could not remove the original workflow from .github as it was replicated to the remaining repos.

I love the idea with patterns_to_remove

we could have:

      - name: Replicating file
        uses: derberg/copy-files-to-other-repositories@v1.0.0
        with:
          github_token: ${{ secrets.GH_TOKEN }}
          patterns_to_remove: .github/workflows/if-go-pr-testing.yml
          topics_to_include: nodejs
          committer_username: asyncapi-bot
          committer_email: info@asyncapi.io
          commit_message: "ci: remove workflows for go projects"

so Go-related .github/workflows/if-go-pr-testing.yml would be removed from all repos that have nodejs topic.

now only question is how patterns_to_remove will play with destination

If I say

patterns_to_remove: globalworkflows/if-go-pr-testing.yml
destination:  .github/workflows/if-go-pr-testing.yml

then if-go-pr-testing.yml is looked for only in .github/workflows/if-go-pr-testing.yml location, otherwise globalworkflows/if-go-pr-testing.yml

Also, my assumption is that patterns_to_include and patterns_to_remove are mutually exclusive

pinging other contributors for opinion as they might also be interested in this solution

  • 🚀2
Tjitse-E commented

I would keep the settings the same and introduce no additional settings. When a file is removed (assuming the delete file is included in patterns_to_include) in the source repo, I would expect that it's also removed in the destination repo's. It seems like the natural behaviour.

derberg commented

I actually think we need 2 different solutions:

  • When a file is removed (assuming the delete file is included in patterns_to_include) in the source repo, I would expect that it's also removed in the destination repo's. It seems like the natural behaviour. because like @Tjitse-E wrote, it basically feels natural
  • but we also need to enable others to remove workflows without removing them from .github. Like I described above, I have use case that workflow was pushed to 40 repos, but now we decided it should be just in 5 repos, so I do not want to remove it from .github, so having patterns_to_remove is necessary

Looks like another action name change is approaching. Name copy-files-to-other-repositories is no longer valid.

Any suggestions?
manage-files-across-repositories or manage-same-files-across-many-repositories

  • 👍2
ReenigneArcher commented

Any suggestions?

global-file-manager

ReenigneArcher commented

I would have made a discussion on this, but it's not enabled for this repo so thought I'd share here. Did you guys see this new feature being rolled out on GitHub? https://github.blog/changelog/2023-01-10-github-actions-support-for-organization-wide-required-workflows-public-beta/

I don't think it replaces this action completely as I often use it to copy non-workflow files. I've yet to try it but I think it can at least simplify the matrix I'm using for this action.

Edit: These currently only support pull_request and pull_request_target workflows, so not really that useful.

derberg commented

I opened a PR to get this done finally #48

ReenigneArcher commented

Thank you! Unfortunately I won't be able to test it as I've already manually removed everything and don't have a test org setup.

derberg commented

@ReenigneArcher no worries, thanks for info

derberg commented

v2.1.0 is out but v2 will be created later, once I use this action in my org. Although I hope nobody uses actions through tags like v2 🙏🏼 cause of security concerns and all that shit.

derberg commented

worked well asyncapi/generator#950

workflows with 2 jobs https://github.com/asyncapi/.github/blob/master/.github/workflows/global-remover.yml

normally would create 2 PRs, not just one PR with 2 commits

derberg commented

anyone have time to test before v2 update?

ReenigneArcher commented

Hi, I finally have another use case for this.

Unfortunately the option being mutually exclusive is really not ideal. That severely complicates my matrix run.

Edit: maybe not that big a deal now that this is in #50

Didn't even realize that got merged... going to try it out.

  • 👍1