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Pin GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs - #710

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Pin GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs#710
Microsoft Open Source Security Bot (OssSecurityBot) wants to merge 1 commit into
microsoft:mainfrom
OssSecurityBot:oss-security-bot/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.

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). This groups Dependabot PRs for GitHub Actions and enforces a minimum 7-day cooldown between updates. 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 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).


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

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Pull request overview

This PR hardens the repository’s CI configuration by pinning several GitHub Actions workflow dependencies to full-length commit SHAs (improving reproducibility and reducing tag-retargeting risk) and by adding a Dependabot configuration for GitHub Actions updates with a 7‑day cooldown.

Changes:

  • Pinned multiple third-party GitHub Actions in workflows (e.g., actions/checkout, codecov/codecov-action, actions/dependency-review-action, github/codeql-action, rustsec/audit-check, taiki-e/*) to full commit SHAs with version comments.
  • Added .github/dependabot.yml to configure weekly GitHub Actions updates, grouping, and a 7-day cooldown.
  • Updated a composite action (install-cargo-tool) to pin taiki-e/install-action to a commit SHA.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 13 out of 13 changed files in this pull request and generated 11 comments.

Show a summary per file
File Description
.github/workflows/version-checks.yaml Pins actions/checkout to a commit SHA for the version consistency workflow.
.github/workflows/typos.yaml Pins actions/checkout and taiki-e/install-action to commit SHAs for the typos workflow.
.github/workflows/test.yaml Pins actions/checkout and codecov/codecov-action to commit SHAs for CI testing and coverage upload.
.github/workflows/local-development-makefile.yaml Pins actions/checkout to a commit SHA for local makefile validation workflow.
.github/workflows/lint.yaml Pins actions/checkout and taiki-e/install-action to commit SHAs for lint and unused-deps workflows.
.github/workflows/github-dependency-review.yaml Pins actions/checkout and actions/dependency-review-action to commit SHAs.
.github/workflows/docs.yaml Pins actions/checkout to a commit SHA for doc builds.
.github/workflows/codeql.yaml Pins actions/checkout and github/codeql-action steps to commit SHAs.
.github/workflows/code-formatting-check.yaml Pins actions/checkout and taiki-e/cache-cargo-install-action to commit SHAs for formatting checks.
.github/workflows/cargo-audit.yaml Pins actions/checkout and rustsec/audit-check to commit SHAs.
.github/workflows/build.yaml Pins actions/checkout to a commit SHA for build workflow.
.github/dependabot.yml Adds Dependabot config for GitHub Actions updates with grouping and 7-day cooldown.
.github/actions/install-cargo-tool/action.yaml Pins taiki-e/install-action to a commit SHA inside the composite action.

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steps:
- name: Checkout repository
uses: actions/checkout@v6
uses: actions/checkout@d23441a48e516b6c34aea4fa41551a30e30af803 # v6.1.0
steps:
- name: Checkout Repository
uses: actions/checkout@v6
uses: actions/checkout@d23441a48e516b6c34aea4fa41551a30e30af803 # v6.1.0
Comment on lines 55 to +57
steps:
- name: Checkout repository
uses: actions/checkout@v6
uses: actions/checkout@d23441a48e516b6c34aea4fa41551a30e30af803 # v6.1.0
steps:
- name: Checkout Repository
uses: actions/checkout@v6
uses: actions/checkout@d23441a48e516b6c34aea4fa41551a30e30af803 # v6.1.0
steps:
- name: Checkout Repository
uses: actions/checkout@v6
uses: actions/checkout@d23441a48e516b6c34aea4fa41551a30e30af803 # v6.1.0
steps:
- name: Checkout Repository
uses: actions/checkout@v6
uses: actions/checkout@d23441a48e516b6c34aea4fa41551a30e30af803 # v6.1.0
steps:
- name: Checkout Repository
uses: actions/checkout@v6
uses: actions/checkout@d23441a48e516b6c34aea4fa41551a30e30af803 # v6.1.0
Comment on lines +23 to 26
uses: actions/checkout@d23441a48e516b6c34aea4fa41551a30e30af803 # v6.1.0

- name: Install Rust Toolchain (Nightly)
uses: dtolnay/rust-toolchain@nightly
Comment on lines +39 to 42
uses: actions/checkout@d23441a48e516b6c34aea4fa41551a30e30af803 # v6.1.0

- name: Install Rust Toolchain (Stable)
uses: dtolnay/rust-toolchain@stable
Comment on lines 19 to 21
- name: Install ${{ inputs.tool }} via install-action
uses: taiki-e/install-action@v2
uses: taiki-e/install-action@67729d5c413db75907f0ad1e39bb04b9c868ff60 # v2.85.7
with:
@wmmc88 Melvin Wang (wmmc88) self-assigned this Aug 10, 2026
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3 participants