Today I needed to be able to automatically disable and enable branch protection rules on a GitHub repository so that an Actions Build Template could be added to the main/master branch.
There is this known reported issue that despite adding a GitHub Actions Workflow file – unless it’s on the main/master branch – you can’t use the workflow_dispatch popup on the UI so build can be manually triggered (if needed).
So I did some investigation and created an automation to copy a workflow to the main/master branch.
In the process I uncovered that some repositories weren’t setup properly with their branch protection rules which blocked the automation.
As a result, I studied the GitHub API and wrote up the below snippet to allow temporary disable/enable of branch protection.
#!/bin/bash
# Get command-line arguments
owner="$1"
target_repo="$2"
target_branch="$3"
echo "Disabling Branch Protection Rules for $target_branch on $target_repo"
gh api repos/$owner/$target_repo/branches/$target_branch/protection \
-H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json" \
-X DELETE || echo "Branch protection rules already disabled or don't exist"
echo "Enabling Branch Protection Rules for $target_branch on $target_repo"
PAYLOAD='{
"required_status_checks": null,
"enforce_admins": true,
"required_pull_request_reviews": {
"dismissal_restrictions": {
"users": [],
"teams": ["my_team_name"]
},
"dismiss_stale_reviews": false,
"require_code_owner_reviews": false,
"required_approving_review_count": 1,
"require_last_push_approval": false,
"bypass_pull_request_allowances": {
"users": ["my_service_account_user_id"],
"teams": []
}
},
"restrictions": {
"users": [],
"teams": ["my_team_name"],
"apps": []
},
"required_linear_history": false,
"allow_force_pushes": false,
"allow_deletions": false,
"block_creations": true,
"required_conversation_resolution": true,
"lock_branch": false,
"allow_fork_syncing": true
}'
echo "$PAYLOAD" | gh api repos/$owner/$target_repo/branches/$target_branch/protection \
-H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json" \
-X PUT \
--silent \
--input - || (echo "Failed to enable branch protection rules for $target_branch on $target_repo" && exit 1)
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