Automatically merge the stable branch into the development one.

If the merge is not necessary, the action will do nothing. If the merge fails due to conflicts, the action will fail, and the repository maintainer should perform the merge manually.

To enable the action simply create the .github/workflows/nightly-merge.yml file with the following content:

name: 'Nightly Merge'
on:
  schedule:
    - cron:  '0 0 * * *'
jobs:
  nightly-merge:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - name: Checkout
      uses: actions/checkout@v4
      with:
        fetch-depth: 0 # Full clone necessary for proper merge
    - name: Nightly Merge
      uses: robotology/gh-action-nightly-merge@v1.5.2
      with:
        stable_branch: 'master'
        development_branch: 'devel'
        allow_ff: false
      env:
        GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Even though this action was created to run as a scheduled workflow, on can be replaced by any other trigger.

For example, this will run the action whenever something is pushed on the master branch:

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master

This will add a button to the action to trigger it manually:

on:
  workflow_dispatch:

The name of the stable branch (default master).

The name of the development branch (default devel).

Allow fast forward merge (default false). If not enabled, merges will use --no-ff.

Allow support for repositories that use git lfs (default false).

Refuse to merge and exit unless the current HEAD is already up to date or the merge can be resolved as a fast-forward (default false). Requires allow_ff=true.

Allow action to run on forks (default false).

User name for git commits (default GitHub Nightly Merge Action).

User email for git commits (default actions@github.com).

Environment variable containing the token to use for push (default GITHUB_TOKEN). Useful for pushing on protected branches. Using a secret to store this variable value is strongly recommended, since this value will be printed in the logs. The GITHUB_TOKEN is still used for API calls, therefore both token should be available.

      with:
        push_token: 'FOO_TOKEN'
      env:
        GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        FOO_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.FOO_TOKEN }}

• Silvio Traversaro (@traversaro)