Warning: Deprecated
This action is deprecated and can easily be replaced by a simpler alternative workflow

Creates a branch with updates from a detached (not actively set) upstream of a repo and a corresponding PullRequest

If you don't understand the quick summary read the following:

This action was mainly created for the following use-case:

You have a GitHub repo that is not directly linked via an upstream-remote This can be achieved by

• duplicating a repo or
• forking a repo and removing it's upstream remote

Now you wan't to update this repo from it's "upstream" (which is not actively set / detached).
You can do that manually, but after some time (especially when there are more often commits on the "upstream"), you definetly wan't to do that automated.

An here this action comes into spotlight.

It automatically updates your "detached upstream":
Firstly it checks if there are new commits on the upstream.
When there are new ones, it creates a new branch and a pull request.

The action is based on PullDetachedRemote

A simple worfklow example:

name: Pull detached upstream automatically from https://github.com/<owner>/<repo>

on:
  # Possibility to run it manually
  workflow_dispatch:
  # Automated
  schedule:
    # Run this every day at 02:22 UTC
    - cron: '22 2 * * *'
  
  
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      # Checkout the current repo
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      # Fetch the history and unshallow the repo so that it can be used
      - name: Fetch all history for all tags and branches
        run: git fetch --prune --unshallow
      # Pull the detached remote and do the magic
      - name: Pull Detached Remote
        uses: litetex/pull-detached-remote@<VERSIONTAG>
        with:
          upstreamrepo: https://github.com/<owner>/<repo>
          upstreambranch: <branchname>
        env:
          GITHUB_PAT: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT }}
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

→ see also Configuration.cs

→ see action.yml

Here you can find a demo implementations:

• avesflower