Contribution Graph Action

Quick start without leaving your browser ⚡

1. Create a new repo (preferably private)
2. Click on Create a new file
   
3. In the Name your file... field, type in .github/workflows/main.yml
4. Paste in one of the YAML file contents below, depending on what you want to do.
5. Click the Commit new file button at the bottom of the page. You're all set!

If you change your mind about these commits later, you can delete the repository and they'll disappear from your contribution graph.

Push a commit to master once a day 🍺

# .github/workflows/main.yml

on:
  schedule:
  - cron: '0 12 * * *' # every day at noon

jobs:
  single-commit:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: bcanseco/github-contribution-graph-action@master
      env:
        GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        GIT_EMAIL: you@youremail.com # replace me

If you need help with cron job syntax, crontab guru is a great resource.

Backfill a year of commits whenever you push to master 🍻

# .github/workflows/main.yml

on:
  push:
    branches: [ master ]

jobs:
  backfill-commits:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: bcanseco/github-contribution-graph-action@master
      env:
        GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        GIT_EMAIL: you@youremail.com # replace me
        MAX_DAYS: 365

Keep reading for more cool stuff like:

• skipping weekends/weekdays
• backfilling specific time periods
• custom commit messages
• and more!

Environment variables 🌳

Key	Description	Default value	Required?
GITHUB_TOKEN	Allows this GitHub Action to make commits for you. Simply pass in ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}. Read more.		🟩
GIT_EMAIL	An email address associated with your GitHub account. Without this, contributions won't show up. Read more.		🟩
GIT_BRANCH	Must either be the default branch (usually master) or gh-pages for contributions to show up.	master
GIT_COMMIT_MESSAGE	The message to use for commits made by this GitHub Action.	chore(actions): empty commit for contribution graph
ORIGIN_TIMESTAMP	The unix timestamp to start commits on. If you set MAX_DAYS greater than 1, commits will be made on days prior to this time.	The current timestamp
MAX_DAYS	The maximum integer number of days to commit on. If you want to backfill a year of commits, set this to 365.	1
INCLUDE_WEEKDAYS	A boolean indicating whether or not to make commits on weekdays.	true
INCLUDE_WEEKENDS	A boolean indicating whether or not to make commits on weekends.	true

Advanced environment variables 🧙‍♂️

There's also some advanced environment variables you can provide. Click here!

Only set these if you know what you're doing:

Key	Description	Default value	Required?
GIT_HOST	You may be able to override this to support a GitHub Enterprise environment.	github.com
GIT_SSH_COMMAND		ssh -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no
GITHUB_ACTOR		Set by the GitHub Actions runner
GITHUB_REPOSITORY		Set by the GitHub Actions runner

How do I know this is secure? 🔒

Explore the code! It's tiny and there aren't many dependencies.

Speaking of dependencies, all production npm dependencies used by this GitHub Action are automatically audited for vulnerabilities. If the badge at the top of this README is green, you're good to go.

If you're still worried about malicious code in this repository, GitHub recommends always using a specific version of any GitHub Actions you add to your repositories. Read more.

- uses: bcanseco/github-contribution-graph-action@master
+ uses: bcanseco/github-contribution-graph-action@v1

As far as data security, there's two sensitive pieces of data that this Action handles:

• GITHUB_TOKEN
• GIT_EMAIL

GITHUB_TOKEN 🔑

GitHub has a great article about the token. It's the standard way that all GitHub Actions interact with GitHub on your behalf. The permissions of this token are both short-lived scoped to the repo only.

You don't need to create this secret yourself; GitHub handles that for you. All you need to do is provide the token in your workflow, job, or step:

env:
  GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

GIT_EMAIL 📧

This GitHub Action requires an email associated with your GitHub account. If you provide a random or throwaway email, contributions won't show up on your GitHub profile. Read more.

Chances are, your email is already public if you're making commits with it. But if you're concerned about privacy, you can do either of the following:

• Add your email as a secret and pass it in the same way as the GITHUB_TOKEN
• Use your GitHub-provided noreply email address

Contribute 👪

PRs are welcome! Please read the contributing guide. This project is MIT licensed.