HTTP status: 401 Failed to post comment. Status code: 401

[abhisek247767]

---

name: Auto Comment on PR Merge

on:
pull_request:
types: [closed]

jobs:
comment:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
if: github.event.pull_request.merged == true
steps:
- name: Checkout Repository
uses: actions/checkout@v2

- name: Debug Information
  run: |
    echo "Event name: ${{ github.event_name }}"
    echo "PR number: ${{ github.event.pull_request.number }}"
    echo "Merged: ${{ github.event.pull_request.merged }}"

- name: Add Comment to PR
  env:
    GH_PAT: ${{ secrets.GH_PAT_COMMENT }}
  run: |
    COMMENT=$(cat <<EOF
    {
      "body": "🎉 Your pull request has been successfully merged! 🎉 Thank you for your valuable contribution to our project. Your efforts are greatly appreciated. Feel free to reach out if you have any more contributions or if there's anything else we can assist you with. Keep up the fantastic work! 🚀"
    }
    EOF
    )
    
    RESPONSE=$(curl -X POST \
      -H "Authorization: token $GH_PAT" \
      -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json" \
      "https://api.github.com/repos/${{ github.repository }}/issues/${{ github.event.pull_request.number }}/comments" \
      -d "$COMMENT" \
      -w "\n%{http_code}" \
      -s)
    HTTP_STATUS=$(echo "$RESPONSE" | tail -n1)
    BODY=$(echo "$RESPONSE" | sed '$d')
    
    echo "Response body: $BODY"
    echo "HTTP status: $HTTP_STATUS"
    
    if [ "$HTTP_STATUS" -ne 201 ]; then
      echo "Failed to post comment. Status code: $HTTP_STATUS"
      exit 1
    fi
    
    echo "Comment posted successfully!"

---

can someone ell why my job fail every time.. i tried with GitHub default secret token also still.

[DevrMichael]

The 401 means the token you’re using doesn’t have permission to post comments on PRs.

A few things to check:

1. Personal Access Token (PAT): Make sure GH_PAT_COMMENT has the repo and public_repo scopes (depending on your repo visibility).
2. Default GitHub Token: If you’re using GITHUB_TOKEN, it must have permissions: pull-requests: write set at the job or workflow level. Otherwise comment creation will fail.
3. Token usage: Ensure you use Authorization: Bearer ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} for the default token, not token.

Example fix:

permissions:
  pull-requests: write

Add that to the top of your workflow, and it should resolve the 401 error.