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Pin GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs#1687

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Pin GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs#1687
OssSecurityBot wants to merge 1 commit into
microsoft:mainfrom
OssSecurityBot:oss-security-bot/pin-actions

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Summary

This PR pins GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs for improved security and reproducibility and adds a 7 day cooldown to Dependabot configuration for GitHub Actions.

Why?

Pinning actions to commit SHAs prevents supply-chain attacks where a tag could be moved to point to malicious code. This is a recommended security best practice per the GitHub Actions security hardening guide.

This change mitigates the risk of tag retargeting to malicious code as seen in incidents like the tj-actions/changed-files action compromise or codfish/semantic-release-action compromise and improves the integrity and reproducibility of the CI/CD pipeline.

What changed?

Action pinning: Third-party action references in .github/workflows/ that used mutable tag-based references (e.g., actions/checkout@v4) have been updated to full-length commit SHAs with a version comment (e.g., actions/checkout@<sha> # v4) using the pinact tool. References that were already pinned to a SHA, or that used immutable release tags, were left unchanged.

Dependabot configuration: .github/dependabot.yml has been updated to ensure a github-actions package-ecosystem section is present with a cooldown configuration (default-days: 7). This groups Dependabot PRs for GitHub Actions and enforces a minimum 7-day cooldown between updates. If the file did not exist, it was created. If a github-actions section already existed, only the cooldown block was added or its default-days value was increased to 7 if it was lower. The 7-day cooldown provides a window for the community to detect and report compromised releases before they are automatically proposed as updates, reducing exposure to supply-chain attacks via newly published malicious versions.

Is this safe to merge?

Yes. The pinned SHAs correspond to the same commits that the existing tags pointed to. No behavioral changes are introduced. You can verify the pinned SHA value using the GitHub REST API (e.g., the commit hash for actions/checkout@v7 can be found in the sha property in the JSON response for GET https://api.github.com/repos/actions/checkout/commits/v7).


For more information, visit https://aka.ms/action-pinning

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Pull request overview

This PR hardens the repository’s CI/automation configuration by pinning third-party GitHub Actions to immutable full-length commit SHAs (improving supply-chain security and reproducibility) and updating Dependabot settings to manage GitHub Actions updates.

Changes:

  • Replaced tag-based uses: owner/action@vX references in workflows with full-length commit SHA pins plus version comments.
  • Added a github-actions Dependabot update entry with grouping and a weekly schedule.
  • Added a cooldown block to the Dependabot configuration (see PR comment regarding support/validity).

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 8 out of 8 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

Show a summary per file
File Description
.github/workflows/triage-all-open-issues.yml Pins actions/github-script to a commit SHA for deterministic triage automation.
.github/workflows/triage-agent.yml Pins actions/checkout and actions/github-script to commit SHAs.
.github/workflows/no-response.yml Pins actions/stale to a commit SHA.
.github/workflows/issueSnapshot.yml Pins artifact upload and Azure actions to commit SHAs.
.github/workflows/issueLens-run.yml Pins checkout/setup-node/upload-artifact actions to commit SHAs.
.github/workflows/e2e-autotest.yml Pins checkout/setup-node/setup-java/upload/download-artifact to commit SHAs across E2E jobs.
.github/workflows/ci.yml Pins checkout/setup-node to commit SHAs in CI build job.
.github/dependabot.yml Adds GitHub Actions ecosystem updates with grouping/schedule (and a cooldown block).

Comment thread .github/dependabot.yml
Comment on lines +17 to +20
schedule:
interval: "weekly"
cooldown:
default-days: 7
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2 participants