Repository Traffic GitHub Action

Github action that can be used to store repository traffic and clones past the default 2 week period. It pulls traffic and clones data from the GitHub API v3 and stores it into a csv file, which can be commited to your repository or uploaded elsewhere.

Usage

Setting up permissions

You'll first need to create a personal access token (PAT) so the action can access the GitHub API.

You can generate a PAT by going to Settings -> Developer Settings -> Personal Access Tokens -> Generate new token. You will need to grant "repo" permission. For more in depth instructions, see the GitHub documentation

After you have generated the PAT, go to the "Settings" tab of the repository, click on New Secret, name the secret "TRAFFIC_ACTION_TOKEN" and copy the PAT into the box.

Create a work flow

Create a workflow.yml file and place in your .github/workflows folder. You can reference the action from this workflow. The only required parameter is setting the PAT that was generated when setting up the permissions.

    steps:
    # Calculates traffic and clones and stores in CSV file
    - name: Repository Traffic 
      uses: sangonzal/[email protected]
      env:
        TRAFFIC_ACTION_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.TRAFFIC_ACTION_TOKEN }} 

This actions does not store the generated data anywhere by default. It temporarily stores it in ${GITHUB_WORKPLACE}/traffic, but unless it's exported it will be lost. You can integrate other actions into the workflow to upload data elsewhere. Below are two examples.

Sample workflow that runs weekly and commits files to repository.

on:
  schedule: 
    # runs once a week on sunday
    - cron: "55 23 * * 0"
    
jobs:
  # This workflow contains a single job called "traffic"
  traffic:
    # The type of runner that the job will run on
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    # Steps represent a sequence of tasks that will be executed as part of the job
    steps:
    # Checks-out your repository under $GITHUB_WORKSPACE, so your job can access it
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      with:
        ref: "traffic"
    
    # Calculates traffic and clones and stores in CSV file
    - name: GitHub traffic 
      uses: sangonzal/[email protected]
      env:
        TRAFFIC_ACTION_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.TRAFFIC_ACTION_TOKEN }} 
     
    # Commits files to repository
    - name: Commit changes
      uses: EndBug/add-and-commit@v4
      with:
        author_name: Santiago Gonzalez
        message: "GitHub traffic"
        add: "./traffic/*"
        ref: "traffic"  # commits to branch "traffic" 

• Notes:
  • Ensure there is a branch in your repository with whatever ref value you use before running the action. If using the above values, you would create a branch "traffic".
  • Ensure that the ref used in actions/checkoutv2 is the same in Endbug/add-and-commit@v4.

Sample workflow that runs weekly and uploads files to S3.

If you'd like to avoid commiting the data to the repository, you can use another action to upload elsewhere. For example, you could download and upload files from S3 using other github actions.

on:
  schedule: 
    # runs once a week on sunday
    - cron: "55 23 * * 0"
    
jobs:
  # This workflow contains a single job called "traffic"
  traffic:
    # The type of runner that the job will run on
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    # Steps represent a sequence of tasks that will be executed as part of the job
    steps:
    # Checks-out your repository under $GITHUB_WORKSPACE, so your job can access it
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2

    # Download from S3
    - uses: prewk/s3-cp-action@master
      env:
        AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
        AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
        SOURCE: 's3://some-bucket/something-remote'
        DEST: 'traffic'
    
    # Calculates traffic and clones and stores in CSV file
    - name: Repository Traffic 
      uses: sangonzal/[email protected]
      env:
        TRAFFIC_ACTION_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.TRAFFIC_ACTION_TOKEN }} 
     
     # Upload to S3
    - name: S3 Sync
      uses: jakejarvis/[email protected]
      with:
        args: --acl public-read --follow-symlinks --delete
      env:
        AWS_S3_BUCKET: ${{ secrets.AWS_S3_BUCKET }}
        AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
        AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
        SOURCE_DIR: 'traffic'

Running from a different repository

If you'd like to get stats from a different repository than the one that you are running the github action, you can set the env variable "REPOSITORY_NAME". REPOSITORY_NAME should be formatted as "username/repository_name" or "organization_name/repository_name". The personal access token that you created in the first step should have access to the repository. For example, if I was to set up a a github action in a different repository to store stats for this repo, the workflow file would look like this:

    steps:
    # Calculates traffic and clones and stores in CSV file
    - name: Repository Traffic 
      uses: sangonzal/[email protected]
      env:
        TRAFFIC_ACTION_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.TRAFFIC_ACTION_TOKEN }}
        REPOSITORY_NAME: "sangonzal/repository-traffic-action"