DDEV Commit Message Checker

A GitHub Action that checks commit messages against a regex pattern. Runs on push and pull_request events; for pull requests it checks the title, body, and optionally the commit messages themselves (title and body are concatenated with two newlines).

Note

Forked from the unmaintained GsActions/commit-message-checker.

Usage

name: 'Commit Message Check'
on:
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, edited, reopened, synchronize]
  pull_request_target:
    types: [opened, edited, reopened, synchronize]
  push:
    branches:
      - main
      - 'releases/*'

jobs:
  check-commit-message:
    name: Check Commit Message
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Check Commit Type
        uses: ddev/commit-message-checker@v3
        with:
          pattern: '\[[^]]+\] .+$'
          flags: 'gm'
          error: 'Your first line has to contain a commit type like "[BUGFIX]".'

      - name: Check Line Length
        uses: ddev/commit-message-checker@v3
        with:
          pattern: '^[^#].{74}'
          error: 'The maximum line length of 74 characters is exceeded.'
          excludeTitle: 'true' # optional: skip the pull request title
          excludeDescription: 'true' # optional: skip the pull request body
          checkAllCommitMessages: 'true' # optional: check every commit on the PR
          accessToken: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} # required when checkAllCommitMessages is true

      - name: Check for Resolves / Fixes
        uses: ddev/commit-message-checker@v3
        with:
          pattern: '^.+(Resolves|Fixes): \#[0-9]+$'
          error: 'You need at least one "Resolves|Fixes: #<issue number>" line.'

Inputs

Input	Required	Default	Description
pattern	yes	-	Regex pattern the commit message must match. See MDN RegExp.
error	yes	-	Error message reported when the pattern does not match.
flags	no	gm	Regex flags. Any combination of g, i, m, s, u, y.
excludeTitle	no	false	If true, skip the pull request title.
excludeDescription	no	false	If true, skip the pull request body.
checkAllCommitMessages	no	false	If true, check every commit attached to the pull request (requires accessToken).
accessToken	no	-	GITHUB_TOKEN used to fetch pull request commits. Required when checkAllCommitMessages.

Troubleshooting

Most questions about this action are about visibility, not bugs. Start by enabling debug logging for the workflow - add the ACTIONS_STEP_DEBUG and ACTIONS_RUNNER_DEBUG repository secrets, set both to true, and re-run. The action will log each input, the resolved messages, and the regex evaluation.

For iterating on patterns, https://regexr.com/ matches this action's runtime behavior closely.

Development

All Node tooling runs inside the DDEV web container, which pins the Node version via .ddev/config.yaml (currently Node 24). Use ddev npm / ddev exec node so builds don't depend on the host toolchain.

Setup

git clone https://github.com/ddev/commit-message-checker.git
cd commit-message-checker
ddev start
ddev npm install
ddev npm run all

Scripts

Script	What it does
format:write	Run Prettier across the repo and fix formatting.
format:check	Run Prettier without writing - used in CI.
lint	Run ESLint over the repo.
test	Run the Jest suite in ESM mode (--experimental-vm-modules).
package	Bundle src/index.ts → dist/index.js with Rollup. Commit dist/.
local-action	Run the action locally against .env. See below.
all	format:write → lint → test → package. Same as CI.

Invoke any of these as ddev npm run <script>.

Testing locally

@github/local-action stubs out the GitHub Actions runtime so you can exercise src/main.ts without pushing a branch. Everything it needs lives in local-action/:

• local-action/.env.example — template for action inputs (INPUT_*) and runtime env (GITHUB_EVENT_NAME, GITHUB_EVENT_PATH).
• local-action/event.json.example — webhook payload that @actions/github parses into github.context.payload. Ships a sample push with three commits (two passing, one failing). For pull request flows, set GITHUB_EVENT_NAME=pull_request in .env and replace event.json with a payload containing pull_request / repository keys.

ddev npm run local-action
# Edit local-action/.env or local-action/event.json and re-run to iterate.

The first run copies each *.example to its working filename if it isn't there yet — both local-action/.env and local-action/event.json are gitignored, so your edits stay local.

Releasing

dist/index.js is what GitHub Actions executes, so it must be regenerated and committed whenever runtime code changes. ddev npm run all rebuilds it; the build-test workflow fails the PR if the committed bundle is stale.

License

Released under the terms of the MIT License.