How can I use GitHub Actions to automatically revert a PR if a later job fails? I want to automatically revert a pull request if a particular job in my GitHub Actions pipeline fails, even if previous jobs succeeded. What’s the best way to automate this rollback process?

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How can I use GitHub Actions to automatically revert a PR if a later job fails?
I want to automatically revert a pull request if a particular job in my GitHub Actions pipeline fails, even if previous jobs succeeded. What’s the best way to automate this rollback process?

[AdarshBP]

To automatically revert a pull request (PR) in GitHub Actions if a later job fails, even if previous jobs succeeded, you can follow these steps:

1. Setup a Failing Job Check
   You'll need to capture when a specific job fails. This can be done by checking the exit status or using GitHub's failure() function in your workflow.

2. Trigger a Revert
   To revert the PR, you can use the GitHub API to:

Automatically create a new PR that reverts the changes made by the original PR.
Close or mark the original PR as reverted.
3. Configure a Personal Access Token
To perform the revert programmatically, GitHub Actions needs the correct permissions. You can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) with the necessary repository scopes and store it in GitHub Secrets.

4. GitHub Actions Workflow Example
   Here’s an example of how to set up this logic:

name: PR with Auto-Revert

on:
pull_request:
branches:
- main

jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout code
uses: actions/checkout@v3

  # Simulate a build step
  - name: Run some build steps
    run: |
      echo "Running build steps..."
      # Simulate failure in this step
      exit 1

revert_on_failure:
if: ${{ failure() }}
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
needs: build
steps:
- name: Checkout code
uses: actions/checkout@v3

  # Revert the PR
  - name: Revert Pull Request
    run: |
      PR_NUMBER=$(echo ${{ github.event.number }})
      git fetch origin main
      git checkout -b revert-pr-$PR_NUMBER
      git revert -m 1 $(git log -1 --pretty=format:%H)
      git push origin revert-pr-$PR_NUMBER

  # Create a Revert PR using GitHub API
  - name: Create Revert PR
    uses: octokit/[email protected]
    with:
      route: POST /repos/${{ github.repository }}/pulls
      token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      body: |
        {
          "title": "Revert PR #${{ github.event.number }}",
          "head": "revert-pr-${{ github.event.number }}",
          "base": "main",
          "body": "Automatically reverting due to failure in the build job."
        }