comment-changes: CI fails with code 64 and message "Tag v1.2.3 does not seem to exist."

[kevinmatthes]

In my CI, I use the following workflow:

name: comment-changes

on:
  workflow_dispatch:

permissions:
  contents: write

jobs:
  changelog:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/[email protected]
        with:
          ref: ${{ github.head_ref }}

      - uses: fregante/[email protected]

      - run: |
          rustup update
          cargo install aeruginous --all-features
          aeruginous comment-changes -d ::= -f ron -k -o changelog.d/ -T "v$(cat .version)"
          git add changelog.d/
          git commit -m 'Create summary of recent changes'
          git push

This workflow shall create a single fragment with all changes since the last release, tag v1.2.3, and push it to the HEAD branch of the respective PR. But when I run it, I always receive exit code 64 and the following message:

Tag v1.2.3 does not seem to exist.

What do I do wrong?

[kevinmatthes]

The problem can be resolved by checking out the repository with the following setup:

      - uses: actions/[email protected]
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
          ref: ${{ github.head_ref }}

The key point is the line fetch-depth: 0 which adjusts the number of commits being checked out. By default, actions/checkout will only checkout 1 commit (the one referred to by HEAD) in order to improve the performance, especially in repositories with many commits. Unfortunately, the last commit is not necessarily one with the queried tag, in your case v1.2.3. Thus, Aeruginous cannot find the tag because it has no access to the respective commit.