Pin GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs - #13273
Pin GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs#13273Dan Fiedler (danfiedler-msft) wants to merge 1 commit into
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🟢 Approval recommended
The changes are limited to deterministic security hardening of workflow action references and a straightforward Dependabot configuration update.
Pull request overview
This PR hardens the repository’s CI/CD configuration by replacing mutable GitHub Actions version tags with full-length commit SHAs (for reproducibility and supply-chain safety) and by adding a 7‑day Dependabot cooldown for GitHub Actions updates.
Changes:
- Pin
actions/checkoutusages in multiple workflows to a full commit SHA (with an inline version comment). - Pin
actions-ecosystem/*action references used for labeling/assignment workflows to full commit SHAs. - Add
cooldown: default-days: 7to thegithub-actionsDependabot update configuration.
File summaries
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| .github/workflows/versioned-content.yml | Pin actions/checkout to a full commit SHA. |
| .github/workflows/targeting-valid-branch.yml | Pin actions/checkout to a full commit SHA. |
| .github/workflows/targeting-repo-files.yml | Pin actions/checkout to a full commit SHA. |
| .github/workflows/stale-content.yml | Pin actions/checkout to a full commit SHA. |
| .github/workflows/quality.pr.yml | Pin actions-ecosystem/action-add-labels to a full commit SHA. |
| .github/workflows/quality.issue.yml | Pin actions-ecosystem/* actions to full commit SHAs. |
| .github/workflows/expectations.yml | Pin actions/checkout to a full commit SHA. |
| .github/workflows/checklist.yml | Pin actions/checkout to a full commit SHA. |
| .github/dependabot.yml | Add 7-day cooldown to the github-actions Dependabot update config. |
Review details
- Files reviewed: 9/9 changed files
- Comments generated: 0
- Review effort level: Lite
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Learn Build status updates of commit fcda5a0: ✅ Validation status: passed
For more details, please refer to the build report. |
Summary
This PR pins GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs for improved security and reproducibility and adds a 7 day cooldown to Dependabot configuration for GitHub Actions. This work is described in more detail at https://aka.ms/action-pinning.
Why?
Pinning actions to commit SHAs prevents supply-chain attacks where a tag could be moved to point to malicious code. This is a recommended security best practice per the GitHub Actions security hardening guide.
This change mitigates the risk of tag retargeting to malicious code as seen in incidents like the tj-actions/changed-files action compromise or codfish/semantic-release-action compromise and improves the integrity and reproducibility of the CI/CD pipeline.
What changed?
Action pinning: Third-party action references in
.github/workflows/that used mutable tag-based references (e.g.,actions/checkout@v4) have been updated to full-length commit SHAs with a version comment (e.g.,actions/checkout@<sha> # v4) using the pinact tool. References that were already pinned to a SHA, or that used immutable release tags, were left unchanged.Dependabot configuration:
.github/dependabot.ymlhas been updated to ensure agithub-actionspackage-ecosystem section is present with acooldownconfiguration (default-days: 7). If the file did not exist, it was created. If agithub-actionssection already existed, only thecooldownblock was added or itsdefault-daysvalue was increased to 7 if it was lower. The 7-day cooldown provides a window for the community to detect and report compromised releases before they are automatically proposed as updates, reducing exposure to supply-chain attacks via newly published malicious versions.Is this safe to merge?
Yes. The pinned SHAs correspond to the same commits that the existing tags pointed to. No behavioral changes in action execution are introduced. You can verify the pinned SHA value using the GitHub REST API (e.g., the commit hash for
actions/checkout@v7can be found in theshaproperty in the JSON response forGET https://api.github.com/repos/actions/checkout/commits/v7).Additional Information
For more information, please see https://aka.ms/action-pinning