[error] The process '/usr/bin/git' failed with exit code 128

I’m unable to get my changes job to run which uses paths-filter within it. It always fails with the following error:

My workflow looks like this:

name: Deploy API server
on:
  push:
    branches: [master]

jobs:
  changes:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    # Set job outputs to values from filter step
    outputs:
      apiServer: ${{ steps.filter.outputs.apiServer }}
    steps:
    - name: Checkout source code
      uses: actions/checkout@v1

    - name: Check for changes
      uses: dorny/paths-filter@v2.2.0
      id: filter
      with:
        filters: |
          apiServer:
            - 'packages/api-server/**/*'

  tests:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    defaults:
      run:
        working-directory: packages/api-server

    if: ${{ needs.changes.outputs.apiServer == 'true' }}
    steps:
    - name: Checkout source code
      uses: actions/checkout@v1

    - name: Use Node.js 12.x
      uses: actions/setup-node@v1
      with:
        node-version: "12.x"

    - name: Install dependencies
      run: yarn

    - name: Tests
      run: yarn test

I don’t know if it’s paths-filter that’s causing it but thought I’ll open this issue just in case it helps.

[dorny]

Hi @Hamza5 You are using the checkout action only in the backend job. In your changes job, there is no checkout of the git repository. When the paths-filter action is executed, there’s just an empty folder. That’s why you see the error: fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git.

It should work fine when the workflow is triggered by a pull request event. But it can’t work for push events - detecting changes in push events requires checkout of the repository.

So the solution is simple - just add the checkout step before paths-filter.

[dorny]

I would say the issue is you are using v1 of the checkout action: uses: actions/checkout@v1. It doesn’t persist git authentication token so as paths-filter is trying to fetch additional commit, git command interactively asks for username/password which causes the error.

Please try it with uses: actions/checkout@v2 and let me know if it solved the issue. Anyway I should improve the documentation and error message for this case.