How to clear GitHub caches in workflow using gh?

Question

I want to periodically remove all GitHub caches for my project using a workflow action. While this has been discussed before, the GitHub toolkit has evolved and the proposed solutions seem rather messy and hard to understand.

The project is private and its organization on the free plan, if that's of relevance.

I figured it should be possible to run gh cache delete --all in the workflow. So I devised the following workflow:

name: Clear all GitHub actions caches on: schedule: - cron: "0 4 * * 0" workflow_dispatch: jobs: clear-github-caches: name: Clear all GitHub action caches runs-on: ubuntu-latest permissions: contents: write steps: - run: | gh repo list gh cache delete --all --repo me/my-project env: GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

However, when I run it, it fails with:

me/my-project <description> private 2023-11-05T17:17:15Z HTTP 403: Resource not accessible by integration (https://api.github.com/repos/me/my-project/actions/caches?per_page=100)

I also tried to use a local work copy by adding:

 - uses: actions/checkout@v3

but this did not change anything.

Do I need a different permission than "contents: write"? Or am I missing something else?

The above gh cache delete docs mentions "Deletion requires authorization with the "repo" scope." which means you need to create a PAT for this with repo scope as the default GITHUB_TOKEN doesn't have it. And, you do need the checkout step also (or you'll have to specify the repo using --repo flag with gh commands). — Azeem
– Azeem, Commented Nov 5, 2023 at 17:49
@Azeem Thanks, that did the trick. If you post this as answer, I can make it the accepted one. — roskakori
– roskakori, Commented Nov 8, 2023 at 12:14

Azeem · Accepted Answer · 2023-11-08 12:39:46Z

The gh cache delete docs mentions:

Deletion requires authorization with the "repo" scope.

which means you need to create a PAT (Personal Access Token) for this with repo scope as the default GITHUB_TOKEN doesn't have it.

And, you do need the checkout step also (or you'll have to specify the repo using --repo flag with gh commands).

roskakori · Accepted Answer · 2023-11-16 15:31:46Z

This is the actual action I ended up with:

name: Clear all GitHub actions caches on: schedule: - cron: "0 4 * * 0" # run automatically each Sunday 4:00 UTC workflow_dispatch: # allow to run manually jobs: clear-github-caches: name: Clear all GitHub action caches runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Clear all caches run: gh cache delete --all --repo me/my-project # TODO: Use your project. env: # This token requires the "repo" scope. GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.ACTION_CLEAR_CACHES_TOKEN }}

Change the argument for --repo to your project.

To provide the token for this, create a personal access token with the "repo" permission enabled. Then add a GitHub secret named ACTION_CLEAR_CACHES_TOKEN and use the token as content.

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