Add support for running an Actions workflow #269

joshmgross · 2025-04-14T19:46:55Z

Supports #268

This adds a tool to allow running an Actions workflow via the workflow_dispatch API.

Demo

CleanShot.2025-04-14.at.15.57.51.mp4

(Tested using these changes built from source per the instructions)

https://github.com/joshmgross/actions-testing/actions/runs/14454560690/job/40534749404

joshmgross · 2025-04-14T19:52:04Z

pkg/github/actions.go

@@ -0,0 +1,99 @@
+package github


There are a lot of Actions APIs, I suspect the single-file per API area will break down at some point.

I tried defining a separate actions package, but it created some circular dependencies with this github package.
I'd be happy to explore that more, but I wanted to keep these changes focused on this tool.

Appreciate you mentioning though, it's same reason I didn't consider new packages for tools yet.

Pretty sure the helpers and server can be extracted to their own packages to avoid this.

CC @williammartin @juruen

There are a lot of Actions APIs, I suspect the single-file per API area will break down at some point.

I tried defining a separate actions package, but it created some circular dependencies with this github package.

This might open an interesting debate that really resonates with me!

When I started writing Go, I came from other languages where quickly deciding to use packages was the norm. So I followed suit, and my initial reaction was to do the same. However, over time, I've come to terms with the fact that this might not be entirely idiomatic.

Take go-github, for example — they implement almost the entire GitHub API within a single package.

So my point here is that maybe we don't need to introduce more packages right away. We might consider another alternative, such as splitting the functionality into files like actions_foo.go, actions_bar.go, etc., and that might be more idiomatic.

Having said that, I don't have a strong opinion on it, but I'd like us to consider the above before we make the decision.

Thanks! ❤️

joshmgross · 2025-04-14T19:52:32Z

pkg/github/actions.go

+			// Get the optional inputs parameter
+			var inputs map[string]any
+			if inputsObj, exists := request.Params.Arguments["inputs"]; exists && inputsObj != nil {
+				inputs, _ = inputsObj.(map[string]any)
+			}
+
+			// Convert inputs to the format expected by the GitHub API
+			inputsMap := make(map[string]any)
+			if inputs != nil {
+				for k, v := range inputs {
+					inputsMap[k] = v
+				}
+			}


This was mostly generated by Copilot, not sure if there's a better way to process an object parameter.

jww3 · 2025-04-14T21:39:29Z

pkg/github/actions.go

+			),
+			mcp.WithString("repo",
+				mcp.Required(),
+				mcp.Description("Repository name"),


No mention of case-sensitivity here. Does that imply that it is case-sensitive? Should we be explicit?

This matches the description used by most/all of the other repo MCP inputs in this repo, so I stuck to being consistent with them.

I was thinking it might make sense to define some constant/reusable input definitions for these common inputs like repo & owner for consistency.

jww3 · 2025-04-14T21:40:29Z

pkg/github/actions.go

+			),
+			mcp.WithString("workflowId",
+				mcp.Required(),
+				mcp.Description("The ID of the workflow. You can also pass the workflow file name as a string."),


Just the workflow file name itself is acceptable? Or the relative path to the workflow file?

The API supports both

Relative path

gh api -X POST /repos/joshmgross/actions-testing/actions/workflows/hello-world.yaml/dispatches -f "ref=main"

Full path (note the / must be escaped)

gh api -X POST /repos/joshmgross/actions-testing/actions/workflows/.github%2Fworkflows%2Fhello-world.yaml/dispatches -f "ref=main"

I don't think github/go-github will escape the / by default though, so we might need to handle that 🤔

func (s *ActionsService) CreateWorkflowDispatchEventByFileName(ctx context.Context, owner, repo, workflowFileName string, event CreateWorkflowDispatchEventRequest) (*Response, error) { u := fmt.Sprintf("repos/%v/%v/actions/workflows/%v/dispatches", owner, repo, workflowFileName) return s.createWorkflowDispatchEvent(ctx, u, &event) }

https://github.com/google/go-github/blob/6f8bceff0b000e6c8f5a3e60922ca57188de264e/github/actions_workflows.go#L170-L179

I'd be tempted to flip this around too, and call it workflow_file or something, as it has file access already it can probably work out what workflows it can provide. The ID is only useful where it has received it from a list, and the list endpoint can probably return the file location as part of the list, which is also more useful than the ID, in terms of editing the file.

Does that make sense? The goal here is to make an API that LLMs comprehend and use natively, so definitely have a think on this.

Renamed to workflow_file - 034621b

joshmgross · 2025-04-15T22:43:36Z

pkg/github/tools.go

@@ -82,6 +86,7 @@ func InitToolsets(passedToolsets []string, readOnly bool, getClient GetClientFn,
 	tsg.AddToolset(users)
 	tsg.AddToolset(pullRequests)
 	tsg.AddToolset(codeSecurity)
+	tsg.AddToolset(actions)


@SamMorrowDrums let me know if I added this correctly

Looking through #188, it seems like we don't want some toolsets enabled by deafult but it's not clear to me what enables that.

Default Enabled Features
By default, the following features are enabled:
...

As far as I can tell, the default is "all"

github-mcp-server/pkg/github/tools.go

Line 14 in 614f226

var DefaultTools = []string{"all"}

Add support for running an Actions workflow

d776940

joshmgross commented Apr 14, 2025

View reviewed changes

Remove unnecessary nil check

39099ec

joshmgross marked this pull request as ready for review April 14, 2025 20:03

joshmgross requested review from juruen, SamMorrowDrums, williammartin and toby as code owners April 14, 2025 20:03

jww3 reviewed Apr 14, 2025

View reviewed changes

SamMorrowDrums added the tool-proposal label Apr 15, 2025

joshmgross added 3 commits April 15, 2025 18:32

Merge branch 'main' into joshmgross/run-workflow

1c6285c

Add actions toolset

e89ccf6

Rename workflowId to workflow_file

034621b

joshmgross commented Apr 15, 2025

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Add support for running an Actions workflow #269

Add support for running an Actions workflow #269

joshmgross commented Apr 14, 2025 •

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Add support for running an Actions workflow #269

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joshmgross commented Apr 14, 2025 •

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juruen Apr 15, 2025 •

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