Contributors-Readme-Action

Contributors-Readme-Action is a simple GitHub action to automate contributors list in README file. Not only contributors, collborators, bots or any user.

As it uses a GitHub action it's secure and very easy to integrate into your projects. Once added it will automatically add all the repository contributors to your readme in a well-formatted table, including future contributors 😄. Now why would you need a contributors list? Come on man, show some love to the ones who contribute to your project.😉

The contributors list is fetched from GitHub API.

Contributors Readme Action Table

Below image shows the contributors table generated by this action.

You can take it even furthur by mixing it up with bots, custom users and more. Check out the example provided.

Getting Started

First Step

If you're new to actions, add these to your .github/workflows/main.yml file. If this file does not exist, create one.

on:
    push:
        branches:
            - main

jobs:
    contrib-readme-job:
        runs-on: ubuntu-latest
        name: A job to automate contrib in readme
        permissions:
          contents: write
          pull-requests: write
        steps:
            - name: Contribute List
              uses: akhilmhdh/[email protected]
              env:
                  GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

That's it!

To add it to your existing workflow, append this to your current .yml workflow script.

# add required write permission
- uses: akhilmhdh/[email protected]
  env:
      GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Second Step

1. Add a README.md file
2. Add the below comment inside your README.md where you want it to appear.

<!-- readme: contributors -start -->
<!-- readme: contributors -end -->

3. Save it, wait for the action to complete and tadaa 😄

But wait!!!

• What if you wanted to add direct collaborators of a project, no worries

## Collaborators

<!-- readme: collaborators -start -->
<!-- readme: collaborators -end -->

## Contributors

<!-- readme: contributors -start -->
<!-- readme: contributors -end -->

• Now you decided that you want to join this into one list, no issue

## Contributors

<!-- readme: collaborators,contributors -start -->
<!-- readme: collaborators,contributors -end -->

• Then you decided to add some github users who are important figure in this project and want's to remove some users or bots, no worries

## Contributors

<!-- readme: <username1>,collaborators,<username2>,contributors,<username3>/- -start -->
<!-- readme: <username1>,collaborators,<username3>,contributors,<username3>/- -end -->

The order of the list will be given priority. So username1 will appear first collaborators then username2 likewise.(No brackets for usernames)

The subject inside start and end must be same.

Keywords

keywords	Definition
contributors	contributors of the repo
collaborators	collaborators of the repo
sponsors	sponsors of the repo's user/organization
bots	bots of the repo
username	any username that you want to add on to the list

• An example of this action can be found here

Operators

Operators are in a nutshell simple modifiers that can be applied to a list like removing a person from a list. They can be applied accordingly to a keyword like akhilmhdh/- with a / as seperator.

operator	Definition	Example
/-	remove the username from list	akhilmhdh/-

Optional parameters

You can add these optional parameters in your action script to modify the appearance of the resulting list.

- name: Contribute List
# add required write permission
  uses: akhilmhdh/[email protected]
  with:
      image_size: 100

Option	Default Value	Description	Required
image_size	100(px)	Size of square images in the stack	false
readme_path	README.md	Path of the readme file you want to update	false
use_username	false	To use username instead of full name	false
columns_per_row	6	Number of columns in a row	false
collaborators	direct	Type of collaborators options: all/direct/outside	false
commit_message	docs(contributor): contrib-readme-action has updated readme	Commit message of the github action	false
committer_username	""	Username on commit	false
committer_email	""	Email id of committer	false
pr_title_on_protected	docs(contributor): contributors readme action update	Title of the PR that will be created if the branch is protected	false
auto_detect_branch_protection	true	To override auto protected branch detection	false

committer_username and committer_email both must be provided to use as a replacement to GH action committer

The action will update Readme as PR when the branch is protected, else it will directly commit it. But if your branch is protected and you passed personal access token to avoid PR mode by trusting the action, you could set auto_detect_branch_protection to false

Outputs

Following outputs are generated on the execution of this action.

Output	Value	Description
pr_id	string	Id of the generated PR when the branch is in protected mode.

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for getting started with the contribution.

Make sure that you follow CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md while contributing and engaging in the discussions.

When contributing, please first discuss the change you wish to make via an issue on this repository before making the actual change.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgments

• all-contributors-bot: Inspiration for this project
• image-shield: For the cool badges