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ci: GitHub Actions updates (brought to you by Dependabot)#2097

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dscho wants to merge 4 commits intogitgitgadget:masterfrom
dscho:dependabot-updates
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ci: GitHub Actions updates (brought to you by Dependabot)#2097
dscho wants to merge 4 commits intogitgitgadget:masterfrom
dscho:dependabot-updates

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@dscho dscho commented Apr 21, 2026

Dependabot (which my voice-typing software frequently mis-translates to "the panda bot" 😉) is enabled in Git for Windows' fork of the git/git repository to lighten the maintenance burden a little bit. Frequently, the updates are not actually for Git for Windows' patches on top of git/git, but apply directly to git/git.

Here is the latest batch of those updates, with heavily augmented commit messages.

dscho added 4 commits April 21, 2026 08:58
The v2 of `microsoft/setup-msbuild` runs on Node.js 20, which GitHub
is phasing out of the Actions runners. v3 is a minimal release whose
only substantive change is moving the action's runtime to Node.js 24,
so that our Visual Studio build jobs keep working once Node.js 20 is
removed from the runners.

The risk of this bump is very low: v3 contains no functional changes
to the action itself -- it merely adds `msbuild.exe` to `PATH`, with
no change to command-line flags, inputs, outputs, or default tool
resolution. The only precondition is a recent-enough Actions Runner,
which the github.com-hosted runners already satisfy.

See also:

- Release notes: https://github.com/microsoft/setup-msbuild/releases
- Compare: microsoft/setup-msbuild@v2...v3

Originally-authored-by: dependabot[bot] <support@github.com>
Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
`actions/upload-artifact` and `actions/download-artifact` are tightly
coupled: the upload action writes artifact archives in a format that
the download action then reads. Because of this coupling, the two
actions should always be bumped together so that the artifact format
contract between them is satisfied.

All of our `actions/upload-artifact` uses are still on v5, with one
stray v4 occurrence. Keeping them on these versions would leave the
artifact-upload steps running on Node.js 20, which GitHub is phasing
out, and would eventually cause all upload steps to fail.

Going from v5 directly to v7 folds in two release bumps:

- v6 switches the action's default runtime from Node.js 20 to
  Node.js 24 (v5 had preliminary Node 24 support but still defaulted
  to Node 20). This is the main motivation for bumping now: it gets
  us off the deprecated runtime.
- v7 adds two opt-in features: direct (unzipped) single-file uploads
  via a new `archive: false` parameter, and an internal conversion of
  the action to ESM to match the updated `@actions/*` packages.

Risk analysis: we never pass `archive`, so the zip-as-usual behavior
is unchanged. We also do not `require('@actions/*')` from any calling
workflow, so the ESM migration cannot affect us. The upload steps we
care about -- tracked files/build artifacts and failing-test
directories -- keep the same inputs (`name`, `path`) and outputs, so
the diff is purely the `@vN` identifier. The main precondition is a
recent Actions Runner (>= 2.327.1), which the github.com-hosted
runners used by our CI already satisfy.

While at it, align the one remaining `@v4` occurrence with the rest
so that every `upload-artifact` step uses the same version.

See also:

- Release notes: https://github.com/actions/upload-artifact/releases
- Compare: actions/upload-artifact@v5...v7

We use `actions/download-artifact` to pass build artifacts between
the "windows-build" / "vs-build" / "windows-meson-build" jobs and
their corresponding test jobs. All callers are currently on v6;
bumping to v8 keeps this action in lockstep with the `upload-artifact`
bump above.

What v7 and v8 change:

- v7 switches the default runtime from Node.js 20 to Node.js 24 (v6
  had preliminary Node 24 support but still defaulted to Node 20).
  This is the main motivation: it gets us off the deprecated runtime.
- v8 makes three further changes:
  * The package is converted to ESM (invisible to workflow authors).
  * The action now checks the `Content-Type` header before
    attempting to unzip a download, so that directly-uploaded
    (unzipped) artifacts from `upload-artifact` v7 are downloaded
    correctly.
  * The `digest-mismatch` behaviour is changed from warn-and-
    continue to a hard failure by default.

Risk analysis: defaulting hash-mismatch to a hard failure is
strictly safer than the previous warn-and-continue behaviour -- a
mismatch points to real corruption or tampering and should stop the
run. We download archives that the same workflow just uploaded, on
the same runner fleet, so false positives are not expected. Our
usage is limited to the `name` and `path` inputs, which are
unchanged between v6 and v8, so the diff is purely the `@vN`
identifier.

See also:

- Release notes: https://github.com/actions/download-artifact/releases
- Compare: actions/download-artifact@v6...v8

Originally-authored-by: dependabot[bot] <support@github.com>
Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
The only use we have of `actions/github-script` is the "skip if the
commit or tree was already tested" step in `main.yml`, which checks
whether an identical tree-SHA was already built successfully. It
currently pins v8; v9 is the latest release.

What v9 changes:

- The `ACTIONS_ORCHESTRATION_ID` environment variable is now
  appended to the HTTP user-agent string. This is transparent to
  our script.
- A new injected `getOctokit` factory lets scripts create
  additional authenticated clients in the same step without
  importing `@actions/github`. We do not use it.
- Two breaking changes affect scripts that either call
  `require('@actions/github')` (fails at runtime, because
  `@actions/github` v9 is now ESM-only) or that shadow the
  implicit `getOctokit` parameter via `const`/`let` (syntax
  error). Our script does neither -- it only uses the pre-supplied
  `github` REST client and `core` helpers -- so the upgrade is
  safe.

Risk analysis: the step is advisory. It sets `enabled=' but skip'`
as an optimization to avoid re-running CI on a tree that was already
tested successfully. Even if the v9 upgrade broke the script, the
surrounding `try { ... } catch (e) { core.warning(e); }` block would
degrade it to a warning and CI would still run normally. In practice
the script continues to work identically on v9.

See also:

- Release notes: https://github.com/actions/github-script/releases
- Compare: actions/github-script@v8...v9

Originally-authored-by: dependabot[bot] <support@github.com>
Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Every workflow currently pins `actions/checkout` to v5, which was
introduced primarily to move to the Node.js 24 runtime. v6 is the
next release and worth picking up so we stay on a maintained version
of the action.

The one behaviorally interesting change in v6:

  `persist-credentials` now stores the helper credentials under
  `$RUNNER_TEMP` instead of writing them directly into the local
  `.git/config`. Two implications follow:

  1. In the normal case this is an unambiguous improvement -- the
     token no longer lands in `.git/config`, reducing the risk of
     inadvertently leaking it through workspace archiving
     (`upload-artifact` snapshots, cache entries, core dumps, ...).

  2. Docker container actions require an Actions Runner of at least
     v2.329.0 to find the credentials in their new location. The
     github.com-hosted runners our CI uses are already past that
     version, so this does not affect us. Downstream users running
     self-hosted runners may need to update them before adopting
     this version of the action.

Risk analysis: our checkout steps either check out the default
repository (no special credential requirements) or, in the `vs-build`
job, explicitly set `repository: microsoft/vcpkg` and
`path: compat/vcbuild/vcpkg`. Neither case relies on the precise
location of the persisted credentials -- subsequent steps interact
with the API via the runner-provided `GITHUB_TOKEN` directly -- so
the v6 credential-storage change is transparent to our workflows.
The diff is purely the `@vN` identifier; there are no input or
output changes.

See also:

- Release notes: https://github.com/actions/checkout/releases
- Changelog: https://github.com/actions/checkout/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md
- Compare: actions/checkout@v5...v6

Originally-authored-by: dependabot[bot] <support@github.com>
Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
@dscho dscho self-assigned this Apr 21, 2026
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dscho commented Apr 21, 2026

/submit

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gitgitgadget bot commented Apr 21, 2026

Submitted as pull.2097.git.1776775319.gitgitgadget@gmail.com

To fetch this version into FETCH_HEAD:

git fetch https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/ pr-2097/dscho/dependabot-updates-v1

To fetch this version to local tag pr-2097/dscho/dependabot-updates-v1:

git fetch --no-tags https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/ tag pr-2097/dscho/dependabot-updates-v1

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