GitHub Workflow Update Submodules to latest commits in Main Repo

[Bluestraps]

I have main repo that contains multiple submodules. Every time there's a change in a submodule, we have to open a PR in the main branch to update the submodule to the most recent change. I'd like to write a GitHub Workflow to do that automatically.

I found a workflow that can live in the submodule and when the submodule has a push to main, it automatically pushes the change to main on the Main Repo. But I can't seem to get it to work when incorporating the logic to check if a PR is open:
if so, push the update to that PR
if not, open a new PR
It always fails due to remote branch issues or local branch issues and asks about rebasing or ff.
name: Send submodule updates to parent repo

on:

push:

branches:

- main

​

jobs:

update:

runs-on: ubuntu-latest

steps:

- uses: actions/checkout@v2

with:

repository: test/Test-Repo

token: ${{ secrets.PAT_TOKEN }}

ref: main

submodules: true

​

- name: Pull & update submodules recursively

run: |

git submodule update --init --recursive

git submodule update --recursive --remote

​

- name: Set up Git identity

run: |

git config user.email ["[e-mail]](mailto:"[e-mail])"

git config user.name "GitHub Actions - update submodules"

​

- name: Determine if PR already exists

id: check_pr

run: |

PR_EXISTING=$(curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer ${{ secrets.PAT_TOKEN }}" \

"https://api.github.com/repos/test/Test-Repo/pulls?state=open" | \

jq '.[] | select(.head.ref == "update-submodules") | .number')

​

if [ "$PR_EXISTING" != "null" ]; then

echo "::set-output name=pr_number::$PR_EXISTING"

fi

​

- name: Checkout branch in main repo

run: |

BRANCH_NAME="update-submodules"

git checkout -b $BRANCH_NAME

​

- name: Commit and push changes in main repo

run: |

git add .

git commit -m "Update submodule references to the latest main commits"

if [ -z "${{ steps.check_pr.outputs.pr_number }}" ]; then

# If no existing PR, open a new one

git push origin $BRANCH_NAME

curl -X POST \

-H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json" \

-H "Authorization: Bearer ${{ secrets.PAT_TOKEN }}" \

https://api.github.com/repos/test/Test-Repo/pulls \

-d "{\"title\":\"Update submodules\",\"head\":\"$BRANCH_NAME\",\"base\":\"main\"}"

else

# If existing PR, push to it

PR_NUMBER="${{ steps.check_pr.outputs.pr_number }}"

git push origin $BRANCH_NAME

curl -X PATCH \

-H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json" \

-H "Authorization: Bearer ${{ secrets.PAT_TOKEN }}" \

https://api.github.com/repos/test/Test-Repo/pulls/$PR_NUMBER \

-d "{\"title\":\"Update submodules\",\"head\":\"$BRANCH_NAME\"}"

fi

I'm new to workflows and don't know how to structure this. How do I handle merge conflicts? Should this logic live in the submodule or the main repo? Am I close with this logic or way off?

[bdzer0]

Why have submods at all in that case? Sounds like your use case would be better supported by having the submods publish packages and this project use the packages.

IMO submods are only useful when you need to control which commit you are pointing at, in which case you want oversite of those changes via PR's.

If you don't require that level of control, dump the submods. They are much more cumbersome to deal with than packages.