Often one may use GitHub Gists to share a piece of code or configuration which is a very handy way of content distribution. And it’s very likely that the code or text you are sharing is coming from a repository.
The problem that sometimes occurs with such an approach is that repository code evolves and gists become unmaintainable. This is usually not intended when you share a gist directly and is even more problematic when a gist is used e.g. in an article like this one.
Automating Gist updates with GitHub Actions
To solve the problem that may not have existed I created a GitHub action that updates gists for you whenever the source file of the repository changes. Welcome gist-uploader-action.
All you need is a GitHub token with gist scope and a workflow with the Gist ID and the path to the file you’re sharing:
name: Update Gist
on:
release:
types:
- published
workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
update-gist:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
outputs:
url: ${{ steps.gist.outputs.url }}
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v5
- name: Update gist from file
id: gist
uses: xSAVIKx/gist-uploader-action@v0.1.3 # pin to a released version
with:
token: ${{ secrets.GIST_TOKEN }}
gist_id: eeb24ff793d2d47b4f2f023ba554aee4 # ID of the target gist
file_path: .github/workflows/update-gist.yml # path in your repo to upload
# Optional inputs:
gist_description: "This gist is auto-updated using https://github.com/xSAVIKx/gist-uploader-action action"
gist_file_name: "update-gist.yml" # defaults to the basename of file_path
- name: Print gist URL
run: |
echo "Gist URL: ${{ steps.gist.outputs.url }}" >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARYAn example workflow that updates a Gist using GitHub Actions
The workflow above uses the aforementioned gist-uploader-action to automate the update of the gist with the workflow that automated the update of the gist 😃
I’m currently exploring other possible use cases for this action such as creating gists and keeping them up-to-date with externally-accessible files. Create an issue or reach out if that’s something you may want to see in this action.