forge

Keeps a GitHub account's repositories in line with one manifest. It sets what the API can set: repo settings, Actions permissions, rulesets, variables, secrets and deployment environments. It checks and reports what needs a commit or a person to fix: shared CI workflows, Cargo lints, Dockerfiles, releases that didn't reach crates.io, Homebrew or winget, and open Dependabot alerts.

Install

cargo install forgectl            # installs the `forge` command
brew install lkurcak/tap/forge

Binaries for Linux, macOS and Windows are on the releases page. forge calls the API through the GitHub CLI, so gh must be installed and signed in.

Getting started

forge init     # write forge.toml, listing every repo you own
forge check    # report where repos differ from it; exits 1 if any do
forge apply    # fix what forge can, and list the rest

forge init tags each repo by language and visibility, under a starter set of settings and tags. Remove repos forge shouldn't manage and adjust the rest before the first forge apply. Only keys in the manifest are checked, so anything it leaves out stays as it is.

The manifest is the first of:

1. --manifest PATH, or $FORGE_MANIFEST;
2. forge.toml in the current directory;
3. forge/forge.toml in the config directory: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME, else ~/.config (%APPDATA% on Windows).

A repo of its own gives the manifest history and review. Symlink it into the config directory to run forge from anywhere.

Commands

forge check [REPO…]         # report drift; exits 1 if anything differs
forge apply [REPO…]         # fix drift
forge list                  # managed repos, and owned ones the manifest doesn't cover
forge stale [--days 90]     # open issues and PRs nobody has touched in that long
forge bump [--dry-run] [REPO…]  # open PRs moving [pins] to the latest release
forge deps [--dry-run] [REPO…]  # a PR per Rust repo updating Cargo.lock, tested here first
forge init [--owner NAME]   # write a starter manifest

forge stale covers every repo the owner has, managed or not, leaving out issues with a label in [stale] ignore_labels (a backlog of feature ideas, say). It only lists them.

Manifest

owner = "you"
release_tag_prefix = "v"

[settings]
allow_merge_commit = false

[tags.rust]
calls = ["rust-ci"]

[repos.tool]
tags = ["rust", "security"]
rulesets = ["protect-default-branch"]

• Top-level settings, actions and rulesets apply to every repo. A repo's own table overrides them: settings and actions key by key, rulesets wholesale.

• [settings] goes to PATCH /repos/{owner}/{repo}, so any key that endpoint takes works. vulnerability_alerts = true also turns on Dependabot alerts, which have an endpoint of their own; unlike secret scanning, they're free on private repos too.

• [actions] goes to /actions/permissions (whether Actions run and which actions may), [actions.workflow] to /actions/permissions/workflow (the GITHUB_TOKEN's defaults), and [actions.selected-actions] to the allowlist, checked while allowed_actions is selected.

• rulesets = [...] names rulesets, applied as repository rulesets. Private repos only get theirs with private_rulesets = true at the top level, since rulesets there need GitHub Pro (or Team, for an organization): the plan can lapse without the manifest changing. Built in:

  • protect-default-branch: no deleting or force-pushing the default branch
  • require-pr: changes to the default branch go through a PR
  • require-pr-title: the shared PR title check must pass
  • protect-release-tags: no deleting or moving vX.Y.Z tags

  A rulesets/NAME.json next to the manifest adds a ruleset, or replaces a built-in one, with a body in the REST API shape.

• private_ci = "INPUT" names an input of the shared workflows that private repos' calls must turn on and public ones' leave off, like rust-ci.yml's light: only private repos' Actions minutes are billed. Off by default, so every repo runs full CI. Calls of a workflow without that input aren't affected.

• release_tag_prefix: the latest GitHub release of each repo must be tagged this plus X.Y.Z. A repo can set its own, or releases = false for releases that aren't versions of it (a Homebrew tap's bottles, say).

Tags

A repo's tags = [...] bring the requirements under [tags.NAME]. A tag without a table is just a label. A tag can carry:

• settings, applied over the top-level ones and under the repo's own;
• rulesets, added to the repo's own;
• variables = { NAME = "value" }, Actions variables;
• secrets = { NAME = "~/path" }, Actions secrets, read from local files. They're only set when missing, since GitHub never reveals their values; forge apply --update-secrets overwrites them, after renewing a token, say. forbidden_secrets = [...] must not exist;
• [tags.NAME.environments.ENV], a deployment environment that must exist. deploy_tags = [...] lets only those tag patterns deploy to it, and no branch;
• calls = [...], shared workflows the repo must call (see below). A repo declines one with the no-WORKFLOW tag;
• needs_public = true, for features GitHub only offers public repos. Every public repo then has to carry the tag or decline it with no-NAME, and a private one carrying it is reported, so a visibility change shows up;
• [tags.NAME.lints], lints every Cargo package must set (or inherit from [workspace.lints]), at least this strictly, in Cargo's [lints] shape;
• dockerfile_runs = [...], commands some RUN of the root Dockerfile must run.

Lints, Dockerfiles and workflow calls are only reported, since fixing them means committing to the repo.

Shared workflows

[workflows] maps the file a repo calls a shared workflow from to the workflow's uses: reference:

[workflows]
"ci.yml" = "lkurcak/forge/.github/workflows/rust-ci.yml@v1"

forge reads each shared workflow at that ref, and checks that callers use the same ref and only inputs it has. Calling one tags the repo with the workflow's name (rust-ci) and with each input it turns on (container: true tags it container), so those tags' requirements apply.

This repo's workflows are public, and anyone can call them at @v1, which moves along with compatible changes:

• rust-ci.yml: fmt, clippy, tests on Linux, macOS and Windows, docs, packaging and the MSRV. With container: true it builds and publishes a multi-arch image to ghcr.io instead of testing on macOS and Windows. With light: true, for repos whose Actions minutes are billed (private ones), it's a sanity check: one Linux job on pull requests (fmt, clippy and, unless tests: false, the tests), and on pushes only the image, for linux/amd64 unless arm64: true.
• rust-release.yml: on a vX.Y.Z tag, publishes to crates.io through trusted publishing, attaches binaries to the GitHub release, and bumps the formula in {owner}/homebrew-tap and the package in winget-pkgs. forge then checks the latest release reached each of them.
• pr-title.yml: PR titles follow Conventional Commits. Private repos skip it, since their minutes are billed. A skipped check counts as passed, so forge leaves the require-pr-title ruleset out on private repos, even with private_rulesets = true.
• t-ci.yml: checks repos written in T.

Each file's header shows how to call it, and its inputs say what they do.

Pins

A shared workflow's inputs can pin a release of another repo, like a T repo's t-version and the sha256 of its archive. [pins] says which, by the file the call is in:

[pins."t.yml"]
release = "lkurcak/t-lang"   # whose latest release the inputs should name
version = "t-version"        # the input holding its tag
sha256 = "t-sha256"          # the input holding an asset's sha256, if any,
asset = "t-lang-{tag}-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz"   # of this asset

forge check reports a repo whose pin is behind that repo's latest release. forge bump opens a PR in each such repo moving the inputs there (the sha256 from the digest GitHub keeps of the asset), and turns on auto-merge, so it merges itself once the repo's required checks pass: give those repos the require-ci ruleset and allow_auto_merge.

Updating dependencies

forge deps moves each Rust repo's Cargo.lock to the newest versions its Cargo.toml allows (cargo update), runs clippy and the tests on this machine the way rust-ci.yml does, and if they pass opens one PR, chore(deps): update dependencies, listing each crate it moved. Where the repo allows auto-merge, it's turned on. Newer versions Cargo.toml doesn't allow are listed too, since taking them means editing it. --dry-run stops before the PR. A repo whose PR from an earlier run is still open is left alone.

It takes the place of Dependabot's version updates, which open a PR per crate, each running CI on minutes a private repo pays for. Dependabot's security updates still cover vulnerabilities between runs.

Repos are cloned into forge/repos/OWNER/REPO in the cache directory ($XDG_CACHE_HOME, else ~/.cache; %LOCALAPPDATA% on Windows) and kept there, build cache and all, so later runs build incrementally. The checks' output goes to forge/logs/REPO.log. A path dependency leading out of the repo, like ../../libs/x, is cloned from the owner's repo x, to where the path expects it.

[deps]
alerts_only = ["maintenance"]

Repos with a tag in alerts_only are only updated while they have open Dependabot alerts about Rust crates, unless named on the command line.

Merging on green

The require-ci ruleset requires the check ci / ok. rust-ci.yml ends with it: it passes only if every other job passed or was skipped, whichever ones a repo's inputs turn on. t-ci.yml is that one job. So call them from a job named ci. With it, and the allow_auto_merge setting, gh pr merge --auto merges a PR once all of CI is green. On private repos it needs private_rulesets = true, and so GitHub Pro.

Releasing a version bump

rust-release.yml releases on a vX.Y.Z tag push. A repo that also calls it on pushes to its default branch (see the file's header) has every version bump released when it lands: if Cargo.toml's version has no tag yet, the workflow tags the pushed commit and runs again on the tag. Only a tag may deploy to the release environment, so crates.io and Homebrew are still only published from tags.

Also reported

• A [pins] input behind the release it pins (forge bump opens PRs).
• A latest release whose tag doesn't match release_tag_prefix, that lacks one of the archives its release workflow builds, or that hasn't reached crates.io, the Homebrew formula or winget-pkgs. An open PR delivering it shows as pending.
• Open Dependabot alerts, as pending while a bot PR fixing one is under a week old. Bot PRs open longer than a week are reported too.

Credentials

forge uses the token gh holds for the manifest's owner (gh auth token --user OWNER), so the active gh account doesn't matter. When gh isn't signed in as the owner, as for an organization, it uses the active account's token instead, which needs admin access to the owner's repos. GH_TOKEN overrides both.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.