How can I git fetch && git checkout from GitHub Actions using Azure CLI?

Question

I have the following GitHub Actions file ./github/workflows/staging-deploy.yml

name: Deploy on Staging VM
on:
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - staging
    types:
      - closed

permissions:
      id-token: write
      contents: read
      
jobs: 
  build-and-deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - name: 'Az CLI login'
      uses: azure/login@v1
      with:
          creds: ${{ secrets.AZURE_CREDENTIALS }}
    - name: 'Run Azure CLI commands'
      run: |
          az vm run-command invoke -g rclco-app -n rclco-app-staging-vm --command-id RunShellScript --scripts "cd /app && git config --global --add safe.directory /app && git fetch && git checkout staging && sudo systemctl restart backend"

Unfortunately, this does not appear to do anything after the action runs (and succeeds) in GitHub Actions. If I replace

--scripts "cd /app && git config --global --add safe.directory /app && git fetch && git checkout staging && sudo systemctl restart backend"

with

--scripts "cd /app && mkdir testdir"

/app/testdir is created. It is showing a message that $HOME is not set, but I am unsure if that is the problem. Here is the output of my GitHub Actions:

Answer 1

When I ran the your workflow even I received the same error after creating app directory with mkdir app refer below:-

sudo mkdir app

Output:-

Workflow Output Same error :-

In order to resolve this error, I set HOME as my environment variable by adding this command in my az vm run command :-

export  HOME=/home/usernameoflinuxvm

After adding this command if you receive this error

message": "Enable succeeded: \n[stdout]\n\n[stderr]\nfatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git\n",

Just install git in your linux vm and initialize it in the app directory with git init command:-

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install git -y
run git init after cd into app dir
cd /app && git init

If you get the below error add git checkout -b staging in your az vm run command.

Now getting this error "message": "Enable succeeded: \n[stdout]\n\n[stderr]\nerror: pathspec 'staging' did not match any file(s) known to git\n",

Make sure you create a backend.service file so that the systemctl restart backend command works successfully.

cd /etc/systemd/system/
sudo nano backend.service

backend.service code:-
  GNU nano 4.8                                                                backend.service
[Unit]  Description=Backend Service 
[Service]  ExecStart=/usr/bin/env bash -c 'cd pathtobackend && ./startupscript.sh'  
Restart=always
[Install]  WantedBy=multi-user.target

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable backend.service

This command switches the branch to staging:-

git checkout -b staging

My github workflow:-

name: Azure VM

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - name: 'Az CLI login'
      uses: azure/login@v1
      with:
          creds: ${{ secrets.AZURE_CREDENTIALS }}
    - name: 'Run Azure CLI commands'
      run: |
            az vm run-command invoke -g siliconrg -n siliconvm --command-id RunShellScript --scripts "export HOME=/home/siliconuser && cd /app && git config --global --add safe.directory /app && git fetch && git checkout -b staging && sudo systemctl restart backend"

Azure CLI command that runs git fetch, switches branch and restarts backend.

az vm run command reference MS Document

 az vm run-command invoke -g siliconrg -n siliconvm --command-id RunShellScript --scripts "export HOME=/home/siliconuser && cd /app && git config --global --add safe.directory /app && git fetch && git checkout -b staging && sudo systemctl restart backend"

Output Successful:-