GitHub Action Get Commit Message - github-actions

Question

So I am building an action that does a build for a project that will go to Netlify. In the action I can pass a deploy message. In that deploy message, I want to pass in the commit message of the commit that triggered the build. I was looking at documentation but could not find if this is possible. Thanks

Answer 1

You can get this in the github context for the action, as described here.
The event key will give you the webhook content, as defined here.
So, for your action, you can use something like:
${{ github.event.head_commit.message }}

Answer 2

You can get the concrete commit message with the following command:
github.event.head_commit.message
Or it is possible to get the commit messages with the git log command if you use bash:
git log -1 --pretty=format:"%s"
Update: With regard to the documentation, the payload and thus also the call of the commit message can get with the commits array if there is only one commit. The message can be fetched with the following line in the GitHub action:
github.event.commits[0].message

Answer 3

There is a small difference between the two:
${{ github.event.commits[0].message }}
When the github push event contains several commits, commit[0] contains the oldest commit. I have seen this after a merge.
${{ github.event.head_commit.message }}
On the other hand, the head_commit contains the youngest commit.

Answer 4

The commit-message is available on the following keys:
${{ github.event.commits[0].message }}
${{ github.event.head_commit.message }}
There is quite a lot of other information available on events.
For ex; the following workflow will give you all that information:
# .github/workflows/logger.yaml
name: Event Loggger
on: push
jobs:
log-github-event-goodies:
name: "LOG Everything on GitHub Event"
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Logging
run: |
echo "${{toJSON(github.event)}}"

Answer 5

If you trying to access from a different workflow, ex:
on:
workflow_run:
workflows: Spec App
branches: master
types: completed // Only runs after spec is completed...
You have to use:
${{ github.event.workflow_run.head_commit.message }}

Answer 6

In case someone landed here for a quick solution. The ${{ github.event.head_commit.message }} is still working fine. FYI.

Answer 7

Here is a solution how to get message of a last commit in Pull Request for pull_request event:
---
name: 'How to get commit message'
on:
pull_request:
types:
- edited
- opened
- synchronize
jobs:
get_message:
name: 'Get commit message'
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
permissions:
# this permission should be set to be able use secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN
id-token: write
# not sure if this permission is necessary, just didn't try to remove it when testing
contents: read
# this permission should be set to be able get commits data by curl request
pull-requests: read
steps:
- name: Get commits
env:
# github URL to list commits
COMMITS_URL: ${{ github.event.pull_request.commits_url }}
run: |
if [ "${COMMITS_URL}x" != "x" ]; then
# get commits list and pick up last one by jq
# caution: only 100 commits will be taken by curl
# if your PR has more than 100 commits
# you have to set page query parameter
# and request last page commits
# API URL details: https://docs.github.com/en/rest/pulls/pulls?apiVersion=2022-11-28#list-commits-on-a-pull-request
LAST_MSG=$(curl -H "Authorization: token ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}" "${COMMITS_URL}?per_page=100" | jq -r .[-1].commit.message)
# set environment variable
echo "LAST_MSG=${LAST_MSG}" >> "${GITHUB_ENV}"
else
echo 'LAST_MSG=' >> "${GITHUB_ENV}"
fi
When Get commits step will be completed, commit message may be get from LAST_MSG environment variable