Pull Request Label and Assign

At Contractify, we like to keeps things nice, tidy and organized. We are using Jira for our issue management and GitHub for our version control.

Since we are keen on reducing the manual work related to pull requests, we created a GitHub action that helps us in assigning labels, reviewers and owners to a pull request, based on the files changed in the pull request.

The current version allows you to:

• Assign labels based on file patterns
• Assign reviewers based on labels
• Assign the sender of the pull request as the owner (we don't like pull requests which are owned by nobody)

Sample action setup

To get started, you will need to create a GitHub action workflow file. If you need more information on how to set that up, check here.

In our repositories, we keep these actions in a separate workflow, so we usually add a file called .github/workflows/automation.yml to our repository and put the following content in there:

Create .github/label-and-assign.yml

Create a .github/label-and-assign.yml file containing:

labels:
  dependencies:
  - composer.json
  - composer.lock
  - package.json
  - package-lock.json
  - nova-components/ModuleSelector/package.json
  - nova-components/ModuleSelector/package-lock.json

  gihub_actions:
  - '.github/**/*'

  javascript:
  - ./**/*.vue
  - ./**/*.js

  php:
  - ./**/*.php

assign:
  dependencies:
  - user1
  - user2

  gihub_actions:
  - user1

  php:
  - user2
  - user3

  database:
  - user2
  - user3

  javascript:
  - user4

This file contains the mapping of the labels against the file patterns and the reviewers based on the labels.

Create the workflow file

You will need to create a GitHub action workflow file. If you need more information on how to set that up, check here.

In our repositories, we keep these actions in a separate workflow, so we usually add a file called .github/workflows/automation.yml to our repository and put the following content in there:

name: PR Automation

on:
  [ push ]

permissions:
  contents: write
  checks: write
  pull-requests: write

jobs:
  automation:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - name: Assign Labels and Users
      uses: contractify/[email protected]
      if: ${{ github.actor != 'dependabot[bot]' }}
      with:
        token: "${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}"

Inputs

Various inputs are defined in action.yml to let you configure the actions:

Name	Description	Default
token	Token to use to authorize label changes. Typically the GITHUB_TOKEN secret, with contents:read and pull-requests:write access	N/A
configuration-path	The path to the label configuration file	.github/labeler.yml

In Detail

Order of the actions

The action always runs the steps in the following order:

1. Detect which files are changed
2. Assign the labels based on the changed files
3. Assign the reviewers based on the labels
4. Assign the owner if not present yet

Detection of the changed files

You might notice that there is no checkout step in the workflow. This is done on purpose as the list of changed files is extracted from the pull request details using the GitHub API. This is much faster than having to do a full checkout of your repository.

About Contractify

Contractify is a blooming Belgian SaaS scale-up offering contract management software and services.

We help business leaders, legal & finance teams to

• 🗄️ centralize contracts & responsibilities, even in a decentralized organization.
• 📝 keep track of all contracts & related mails or documents in 1 tool
• 🔔 automate & collaborate on contract follow-up tasks
• ✒️ approve & sign documents safely & fast
• 📊 report on custom contract data

The cloud platform is easily supplemented with full contract management support, including:

• ✔️ registration and follow up of your existing & new contracts
• ✔️ expert advice on contract management
• ✔️ periodic reporting & status updates

Start automating your contract management for free with Contractify on: https://info.contractify.io/free-trial