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Pin GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs - #5858

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Dan Fiedler (danfiedler-msft) wants to merge 1 commit into
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danfiedler-msft:danfiedler/pin-actions
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Pin GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs#5858
Dan Fiedler (danfiedler-msft) wants to merge 1 commit into
microsoft:mainfrom
danfiedler-msft:danfiedler/pin-actions

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Summary

This PR pins GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs for improved security and reproducibility and adds a 7 day cooldown to Dependabot configuration for GitHub Actions. This work is described in more detail at https://aka.ms/action-pinning.

Why?

Pinning actions to commit SHAs prevents supply-chain attacks where a tag could be moved to point to malicious code. This is a recommended security best practice per the GitHub Actions security hardening guide.

This change mitigates the risk of tag retargeting to malicious code as seen in incidents like the tj-actions/changed-files action compromise or codfish/semantic-release-action compromise and improves the integrity and reproducibility of the CI/CD pipeline.

What changed?

Action pinning: Third-party action references in .github/workflows/ that used mutable tag-based references (e.g., actions/checkout@v4) have been updated to full-length commit SHAs with a version comment (e.g., actions/checkout@<sha> # v4) using the pinact tool. References that were already pinned to a SHA, or that used immutable release tags, were left unchanged.

Dependabot configuration: .github/dependabot.yml has been updated to ensure a github-actions package-ecosystem section is present with a cooldown configuration (default-days: 7). If the file did not exist, it was created. If a github-actions section already existed, only the cooldown block was added or its default-days value was increased to 7 if it was lower. The 7-day cooldown provides a window for the community to detect and report compromised releases before they are automatically proposed as updates, reducing exposure to supply-chain attacks via newly published malicious versions.

Is this safe to merge?

Yes. The pinned SHAs correspond to the same commits that the existing tags pointed to. No behavioral changes in action execution are introduced. You can verify the pinned SHA value using the GitHub REST API (e.g., the commit hash for actions/checkout@v7 can be found in the sha property in the JSON response for GET https://api.github.com/repos/actions/checkout/commits/v7).

Additional Information

For more information, please see https://aka.ms/action-pinning

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Pull request overview

This PR improves CI/CD supply-chain security and reproducibility by replacing mutable GitHub Actions version tags in workflows with full-length commit SHAs, and by adding a Dependabot cooldown window for GitHub Actions updates.

Changes:

  • Pin third-party GitHub Actions in multiple workflows to full-length commit SHAs (with version comments).
  • Add .github/dependabot.yml with a github-actions update configuration including a 7-day cooldown.
  • Update artifact upload/download and checkout/setup-node actions across validation/release-related workflows to SHA-pinned references.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 11 out of 11 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

Show a summary per file
File Description
.github/workflows/samples.07.d.sso-for-teams.yaml Pins checkout/docker-login/upload-artifact actions to SHAs for the sample workflow.
.github/workflows/samples.07.c.sso-for-intranet.yaml Pins checkout/docker-login/upload-artifact actions to SHAs for the sample workflow.
.github/workflows/samples.07.b.sso-for-enterprise.yaml Pins checkout/docker-login/upload-artifact actions to SHAs for the sample workflow.
.github/workflows/samples.07.a.upload-to-azure-storage.yaml Pins checkout/docker-login/upload-artifact actions to SHAs for the sample workflow.
.github/workflows/pull-request-validation.yml Pins core CI actions (checkout/setup-node/upload/download artifact) to SHAs for PR validation.
.github/workflows/publish-github-pages.yaml Pins checkout/setup-node/pages actions to SHAs for Pages publishing.
.github/workflows/preview-branch.yml Pins multiple release-related actions (checkout/setup-node/artifacts/releases) to SHAs.
.github/workflows/playground.yaml Pins checkout/upload-artifact/webapps-deploy actions to SHAs for playground deploy.
.github/workflows/download-localization-strings.yml Pins checkout and artifact actions to SHAs for localization sync workflow.
.github/workflows/daily-release.yaml Pins checkout/setup-node/upload/download artifact actions to SHAs for daily release workflow.
.github/dependabot.yml Adds Dependabot configuration for github-actions with a 7-day cooldown.

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Comment on lines 27 to 29
- name: Checking out for ${{ github.ref }}
uses: actions/checkout@v2
uses: actions/checkout@0717577d45739eb3c851188b29f50ed6c0b2194e # v2.8.0

Comment on lines 27 to 29
- name: Checking out for ${{ github.ref }}
uses: actions/checkout@v2
uses: actions/checkout@0717577d45739eb3c851188b29f50ed6c0b2194e # v2.8.0

Comment on lines 27 to 29
- name: Checking out for ${{ github.ref }}
uses: actions/checkout@v2
uses: actions/checkout@0717577d45739eb3c851188b29f50ed6c0b2194e # v2.8.0

Comment on lines 27 to 29
- name: Checking out for ${{ github.ref }}
uses: actions/checkout@v2
uses: actions/checkout@0717577d45739eb3c851188b29f50ed6c0b2194e # v2.8.0

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2 participants