fschoenfeldt / todo-to-issue-action

Action that converts TODO comments to GitHub issues on push.

TODO to Issue Action

This action will convert your # TODO comments to GitHub issues when a new commit is pushed.

The new issue will contain a link to the line in the file containing the TODO, together with a code snippet and any defined labels. The action performs a GET request to retrieve GitHub's languages.yml file to determine the correct comment syntax to look for, and apply the relevant code highlighting.

It will also close an issue when a # TODO is removed in a pushed commit. A comment will be posted with the ref of the commit that it was closed by.

Important information about v3.0

This version is a complete rewrite of the action. TODO labels are now parsed dynamically based on the file type identified by the action. As such, you no longer need to hard-code the LABEL or COMMENT_MARKER inputs.

Syntax data for identifying comments is defined in syntax.json. Whilst this file is not yet exhaustive, it is provided as a starting point and can be easily updated (pull requests welcome). It has not been tested beyond the current markers specified in this file, so the core parser may need modifying to handle any new types.

A few basic tests are included if you would like to see how the new action works.

Summary

• Usage
  • workflow.yaml
  • Inputs
• Examples
  • Adding TODOs
  • Multiline TODOs
  • Specifying Identifier
  • Specifying Labels
  • Specifying Assignees
  • Specifying Milestone
  • Removing TODOs
  • Updating TODOs
  • Existing TODOs
• Contributing & Issues
• Thanks

Usage

Create a workflow file in your .github/workflows directory as follows:

workflow.yaml

Latest version is v3.0.4.

name: "Workflow"
on: ["push"]
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: "ubuntu-latest"
    steps:
      - uses: "actions/checkout@master"
      - name: "TODO to Issue"
        uses: "alstr/todo-to-issue-action@v3.0.4"
        id: "todo"
        with:
          TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

If you use the action in a new repo, you should initialise the repo with an empty commit.

Inputs

The workflow files takes the following required/optional inputs:

Input	Required	Description
TOKEN	Yes	The GitHub access token to allow us to retrieve, create and update issues for your repo. This should be set to ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}.
CLOSE_ISSUES	No	Optional boolean input that specifies whether to attempt to close an issue when a TODO is removed. Default: true.
AUTO_P	No	Optional boolean input that specifies whether to format each line in multiline TODOs as a new paragraph. Default: true.

Three other inputs are provided automatically by GitHub and should not be included in your workflow file, but you may see them referred to in these docs:

Input	Description
REPO	The path to the repository where the action will be used, e.g. 'alstr/my-repo'.
BEFORE	The SHA of the previous commit.
SHA	The SHA of the latest commit.

Examples

Adding TODOs

def hello_world():
    # TODO Come up with a more imaginative greeting
    print('Hello world!')

This will create an issue called "Come up with a more imaginative greeting".

The action expects a colon and/or space to follow the TODO label (so TODO: or just TODO).

Currently only TODOs on their own line are supported, but this may change.

Should the title be longer than 80 characters, it will be truncated for the issue title.

The full title will be included in the issue body and a todo label will be attached to the issue.

A reference hash is added to the end of the issue body. This is to help prevent duplication of TODOs.

Multiline TODOs

def hello_world():
    # TODO Come up with a more imaginative greeting
    #  Everyone uses hello world and it's boring.
    print('Hello world!')

You can create a multiline todo by continuing below the initial TODO declaration with a comment.

The extra line(s) will be posted in the body of the issue.

Each line in the multiline TODO will be formatted as a paragraph in the issue body. To disable this, set AUTO_P to false.

Specifying Identifier

def hello_world():
    # TODO(alstr) Come up with a more imaginative greeting

As per the Google Style Guide, you can provide an identifier after the TODO label. This will be included in the issue title for searchability.

Don't include parentheses within the identifier itself.

Specifying Labels

def hello_world():
    # TODO Come up with a more imaginative greeting
    #  Everyone uses hello world and it's boring.
    #  labels: enhancement, help wanted
    print('Hello world!')

You can specify the labels to add to your issue in the TODO body.

The labels should be on their own line below the initial TODO declaration.

Include the labels: prefix, then a list of comma-separated label titles. If any of the labels do not already exist, they will be created.

The todo label is automatically added to issues to help the action efficiently retrieve them in the future.

Specifying Assignees

def hello_world():
    # TODO Come up with a more imaginative greeting
    #  Everyone uses hello world and it's boring.
    #  assignees: alstr, bouteillerAlan, hbjydev
    print('Hello world!')

Similar to labels, you can define assignees as a comma-separated list.

If the assignee is not valid, it will be dropped from the issue creation request.

Specifying Milestone

def hello_world():
    # TODO Come up with a more imaginative greeting
    #  Everyone uses hello world and it's boring.
    #  milestone: 1
    print('Hello world!')

You can set the issue milestone by specifying the milestone ID. Only a single milestone can be specified.

If the milestone does not already exist, it will be dropped from the issue creation request.

Removing TODOs

def hello_world():
    print('Hello world!')

Removing the # TODO comment will close the issue on push.

This is still an experimental feature. By default it is enabled, but if you want to disable it, you can set CLOSE_ISSUES to false as described in Inputs.

Updating TODOs

def hello_world():
    # TODO Come up with a more imaginative greeting, like "Greetings world!"
    print('Hello world!')

Should you change the # TODO text, this will currently create a new issue, so bear that in mind.

This may be updated in future.

Existing TODOs

This action will convert your # TODO comments to GitHub issues when a new commit is pushed.

As the TODOs are found by analysing the difference between the new commit and the previous one, this means that if this action is implemented during development any existing TODOs will not be detected. For them to be detected, you would have to remove them, commit, put them back and commit again.

Contributing & Issues

The action was developed for the GitHub Hackathon and is still in an early stage. Whilst every effort is made to ensure it works, it comes with no guarantee.

It may not yet work for events other than push or those with a complex workflow syntax .

If you do encounter any problems, please file an issue. PRs are welcome and appreciated!

Thanks

Thanks to Jacob Tomlinson for his handy overview of GitHub Actions.

Thanks to GitHub's linguist repo for the languages.yml file used by the app to determine the correct highlighting to apply to code snippets.