actions/checkout

The actions/checkout@v7 action checks out your repository under $GITHUB_WORKSPACE.

Key Security Update in v7: By default, v7 refuses to check out fork pull request code when triggered by pull_request_target or workflow_run to prevent "pwn request" vulnerabilities. To explicitly allow this, set allow-unsafe-pr-checkout: true after reviewing the security risks.

- uses: actions/checkout@v7

When working within a pull_request trigger, GitHub Actions checks out in detached HEAD mode. To push changes back to the pull request branch, you must explicitly provide the ref input (e.g., using ${{ github.head_ref }}).

Note: The following account information is for GitHub.com and will not work on GitHub Enterprise Server (GHES).

on: pull_request
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v7
        with:
          ref: ${{ github.head_ref }}
      - run: |
          date > generated.txt
          # Note: the following account information will not work on GHES
          git config user.name "github-actions[bot]"
          git config user.email "41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com"
          git add .
          git commit -m "generated"
          git push

You can use the built-in GITHUB_TOKEN to push commits back to the repository. When doing so, you must configure the git user identity.

Note: The following account information is for GitHub.com and will not work on GitHub Enterprise Server (GHES). The user email format is {user.id}+{user.login}@users.noreply.github.com.

on: push
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v7
      - run: |
          date > generated.txt
          # Note: the following account information will not work on GHES
          git config user.name "github-actions[bot]"
          git config user.email "41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com"
          git add .
          git commit -m "generated"
          git push

By default, pull_request events check out a merge commit. To check out the actual HEAD commit of the pull request instead, set the ref input to ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.sha }}.

- uses: actions/checkout@v7
  with:
    ref: ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.sha }}

To ensure the action runs when a pull request is closed, include the closed type in your pull_request trigger configuration.

on:
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]
    types: [opened, synchronize, closed]
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v7

To ensure the checkout action functions correctly using the built-in GITHUB_TOKEN, it is recommended to set the contents permission to read. This is required unless you provide alternative authentication via the token or ssh-key inputs.

permissions:
  contents: read

By default, only a single commit is fetched. To fetch all history for all branches and tags, set fetch-depth: 0.

- uses: actions/checkout@v7
  with:
    fetch-depth: 0

You can use sparse-checkout to limit the files downloaded to reduce checkout time and disk usage.

# Fetch only the root files
- uses: actions/checkout@v7
  with:
    sparse-checkout: .

# Fetch only the root files and .github and src folder
- uses: actions/checkout@v7
  with:
    sparse-checkout: |
      .github
      src

# Fetch only a single file
- uses: actions/checkout@v7
  with:
    sparse-checkout: |
      README.md
    sparse-checkout-cone-mode: false

Use the ref input to checkout a specific branch, tag, or SHA. To check out a specific parent commit (like HEAD^), use fetch-depth to ensure enough history is available, then use a standard git checkout command.

# Checkout a different branch
- uses: actions/checkout@v7
  with:
    ref: my-branch

# Checkout HEAD^
- uses: actions/checkout@v7
  with:
    fetch-depth: 2
- run: git checkout HEAD^

In v2, all checkouts must be located under $GITHUB_WORKSPACE. If you are checking out multiple repositories, you must use the path input to avoid collisions.

Nested Layout

To check out a second repository into a subdirectory of the workspace:

# Self repo - Checkout to $GITHUB_WORKSPACE
- uses: actions/checkout@v2

# Other repo - Checkout to $GITHUB_WORKSPACE/myscripts
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
  with:
    repository: myorg/myscripts
    path: myscripts

Side-by-Side Layout

To check out multiple repositories into separate directories at the root of the workspace:

# Self repo - Checkout to $GITHUB_WORKSPACE/foo
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
  with:
    path: foo

# Other repo - Checkout to $GITHUB_WORKSPACE/myscripts
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
  with:
    repository: myorg/myscripts
    path: myscripts