Pin GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs - #386
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Dan Fiedler (danfiedler-msft) wants to merge 1 commit into
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Pin GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs#386Dan Fiedler (danfiedler-msft) wants to merge 1 commit into
Dan Fiedler (danfiedler-msft) wants to merge 1 commit into
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Pin every action reference to an immutable commit SHA with a trailing version comment, and add a Dependabot configuration for the github-actions ecosystem so the pins stay current. Pinning by SHA prevents supply-chain attacks in which a mutable tag is retargeted to malicious code, per the GitHub Actions security hardening guidance. The 7 day Dependabot cooldown leaves a window for compromised releases to be reported before they are proposed as updates. Also move every action to its latest GA release so the branch does not ship already behind: checkout v7.0.1, setup-node v7.0.0 and setup-python v7.0.0 (all ESM migrations, both majors already on the node24 runtime), plus hadolint-action v3.5.0. The inputs in use are unchanged across the major boundary, and the fork-PR checkout restriction added in checkout v7 does not apply here as no workflow uses pull_request_target or workflow_run. hadolint-action v3.5.0 upgrades the linter from v2.14.0 to v2.15.1, which adds DL3066 and flags the intentional `USER root` directives in the RHEL images. Ignore DL3066 so the lint job stays green; this affects linting only and leaves the built images unchanged. Supersedes #386, which was authored against main and pinned to action versions that predate the OIDC migration and action bumps on this branch. Co-authored-by: Dan Fiedler <151573964+danfiedler-msft@users.noreply.github.com>
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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.ymlhas been updated to ensure agithub-actionspackage-ecosystem section is present with acooldownconfiguration (default-days: 7). If the file did not exist, it was created. If agithub-actionssection already existed, only thecooldownblock was added or itsdefault-daysvalue 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@v7can be found in theshaproperty in the JSON response forGET https://api.github.com/repos/actions/checkout/commits/v7).Additional Information
For more information, please see https://aka.ms/action-pinning