• Motivation
• Usage
  • Prerequisites
  • Adding the Action to Your Workflow
• Action Configuration
  • Environment Variables
  • Inputs
  • Features de/activation
• Action Outputs
• Expected Output
  • Index page example
  • Issue page example
• Project Setup
• Run Scripts Locally
• Run Pylint Check Locally
• Run Black Tool Locally
• Run Unit Test
• Code Coverage
• Deployment
• Features
  • Data Mining from GitHub Repositories
  • Data Mining from GitHub Projects
  • Living Documentation Page Generation
  • Structured Output
• Contribution Guidelines
• License Information
• Contact or Support Information

A tool designed to data-mine GitHub repositories for issues containing project documentation (e.g. tagged with feature-related labels). This tool automatically generates comprehensive living documentation in Markdown format, providing detailed feature overview pages and in-depth feature descriptions.

Addresses the need for continuously updated documentation accessible to all team members and stakeholders. Achieves this by extracting information directly from GitHub issues and integrating this functionality to deliver real-time, markdown-formatted output. Ensures everyone has the most current project details, fostering better communication and efficiency throughout development.

Before we begin, ensure you have a GitHub Token with permission to fetch repository data such as Issues and Pull Requests.

See the default action step definition:

- name: Generate Living Documentation
  id: generate_living_doc
  uses: AbsaOSS/[email protected]
  env:
    GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.LIV_DOC_ACCESS_TOKEN }}  
  with:
    repositories: '[
      {
        "organization-name": "fin-services",
        "repository-name": "investment-app",
        "query-labels": ["feature", "enhancement"],
        "projects-title-filter": []
      },
      {
        "organization-name": "health-analytics",
        "repository-name": "patient-data-analysis",
        "query-labels": ["functionality"],
        "projects-title-filter": ["Health Data Analysis Project"]
      },
      {
        "organization-name": "open-source-initiative",
        "repository-name": "community-driven-project",
        "query-labels": ["improvement"],
        "projects-title-filter": ["Community Outreach Initiatives", "CDD Project"]
      }
    ]'

See the full example of action step definition (in example are used non-default values):

- name: Generate Living Documentation
  id: generate_living_doc
  uses: AbsaOSS/[email protected]
  env:
    GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.LIV_DOC_ACCESS_TOKEN }}  
  with:
    # input repositories + feature to filter projects
    repositories: '[
      {
        "organization-name": "fin-services",
        "repository-name": "investment-app",
        "query-labels": ["feature", "enhancement"],
        "projects-title-filter": []
      },
      {
        "organization-name": "health-analytics",
        "repository-name": "patient-data-analysis",
        "query-labels": ["functionality"],
        "projects-title-filter": ["Health Data Analysis Project"]
      },
      {
        "organization-name": "open-source-initiative",
        "repository-name": "community-driven-project",
        "query-labels": ["improvement"],
        "projects-title-filter": ["Community Outreach Initiatives", "CDD Project"] 
      }
    ]'
    
    # output directory path for generated documentation
    output-path: "/output/directory/path"

    # project state mining feature de/activation
    project-state-mining: true
    
    # project verbose (debug) logging feature de/activation
    verbose-logging: true

    # structured output feature de/activation
    structured-output: true

Configure the action by customizing the following parameters based on your needs:

• LIV_DOC_ACCESS_TOKEN (required):
  • Description: GitHub access token for authentication, that has a permission to fetch from requested repositories.
  • Usage: Store it in the GitHub repository secrets and reference it in the workflow file using ${{ secrets.LIV_DOC_ACCESS_TOKEN }}.
  • Example:

    env:
      GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.LIV_DOC_ACCESS_TOKEN }}

1. Go to your GitHub account settings.
2. Click on the Developer settings tab in the left sidebar.
3. In the left sidebar, click on Personal access tokens and choose Tokens (classic).
4. Click on the Generate new token button and choose Generate new token (classic).
5. Optional - Add a note, what is token for and choose token expiration.
6. Select ONLY bold scope options below:
   • workflow
   • write:packages
     • read:packages
   • admin:org
     • read:org
     • manage_runners:org
   • admin:public_key
     • read:public_key
   • admin:repo_hook
     • read:repo_hook
   • admin:enterprise
     • manage_runners:enterprise
     • read:enterprise
   • audit_log
     • read:audit_log
   • project
     • read:project
7. Copy the token value somewhere, because you won't be able to see it again.
8. Authorize new token to organization you want to fetch from.

1. Go to the GitHub repository, from which you want to run the GitHub Action.
2. Click on the Settings tab in the top bar.
3. In the left sidebar, click on Secrets and variables > Actions.
4. Click on the New repository secret button.
5. Name the token LIV_DOC_ACCESS_TOKEN and paste the token value.

• repositories (required)
  • Description: A JSON string defining the repositories to be included in the documentation generation.
  • Usage: List each repository with its organization name, repository name, query labels and attached projects you want to filter if any. Only projects with these titles will be considered. For no filtering projects, leave the list empty.
  • Example:

    with:
      repositories: '[
      {
        "organization-name": "fin-services",
        "repository-name": "investment-app",
        "query-labels": ["feature", "enhancement"],
        "projects-title-filter": []
      },
      {
        "organization-name": "health-analytics",
        "repository-name": "patient-data-analysis",
        "query-labels": ["functionality"],
        "projects-title-filter": ["Health Data Analysis Project"]
      },
      {
        "organization-name": "open-source-initiative",
        "repository-name": "community-driven-project",
        "query-labels": ["improvement"],
        "projects-title-filter": ["Community Outreach Initiatives", "CDD Project"] 
      }
    ]'

• project-state-mining (optional, default: false)

  • Description: Enables or disables the mining of project state data from GitHub Projects.
  • Usage: Set to true to activate.
  • Example:

    with:
      project-state-mining: true

• verbose-logging (optional, default: false)

  • Description: Enables or disables verbose (debug) logging.
  • Usage: Set to true to activate.
  • Example:

    with:
      verbose-logging: true

• structured-output (optional, default: false)

  • Description: Enables or disables structured output.
  • Usage: Set to true to activate.
  • Example:

    with:
      structured-output: true

The Living Documentation Generator action provides a key output that allows users to locate and access the generated documentation easily. This output can be utilized in various ways within your CI/CD pipeline to ensure the documentation is effectively distributed and accessible.

• output-path
  • Description: This output provides the path to the directory where the generated living documentation files are stored.
  • Usage:

   - name: Generate Living Documentation
     id: generate_doc
     ... rest of the action definition ...
     
   - name: Output Documentation Path
     run: echo "Generated documentation path: ${{ steps.generate_doc.outputs.output-path }}"            

The Living Documentation Generator is designed to produce an Issue Summary page (index.md) along with multiple detailed single issue pages.

# Issue Summary page

Our project is designed with a myriad of issues to ensure seamless user experience, top-tier functionality, and efficient operations.
Here, you'll find a summarized list of all these issues, their brief descriptions, and links to their detailed documentation.

## Issue Overview

| Organization name| Repository name            | Issue 'Number - Title'         | Linked to project | Project Status | Issue URL  |
|------------------|----------------------------|--------------------------------|-------------------|----------------|------------|
| AbsaOSS          | living-doc-example-project | [#89 - Test issue 2](89_test_issue_2.md)      | 🔴 | ---            |[GitHub](#) |
| AbsaOSS          | living-doc-example-project | [#88 - Test issue](88_test_issue.md)          | 🟢 | Todo           |[GitHub](#) |
| AbsaOSS          | living-doc-example-project | [#41 - Initial commit.](41_initial_commit.md) | 🟢 | Done           |[GitHub](#) |
| AbsaOSS          | living-doc-example-project | [#33 - Example bugfix](33_example_bugfix.md)  | 🔴 | ---            |[GitHub](#) |

• Project Status can have various values depending on the project, such as: Todo, Done, Closed, In Progress, In Review, Blocked, etc. These values can vary from project to project.
• The --- symbol is used to indicate that an issue has no required project data.

# FEAT: Advanced Book Search
| Attribute         | Content                               |
|-------------------|---------------------------------------|
| Organization name | AbsaOSS                               |
| Repository name   | living-doc-example-project            |
| Issue number      | 17                                    |
| State             | open                                  |
| Issue URL         | [GitHub link](#)                      |
| Created at        | 2023-12-12 11:34:52                   |
| Updated at        | 2023-12-13 10:24:58                   |
| Closed at         | None                                  |
| Labels            | feature                               |
| Project title     | Book Store Living Doc Example project |
| Status            | Todo                                  |
| Priority          | P1                                    |
| Size              | S                                     |
| MoSCoW            | N/A                                   |

## Issue Content
Users often struggle to find specific books in a large catalog. An advanced search feature would streamline this process, enhancing user experience.

### Background
...

If you need to build the action locally, follow these steps:

python3 --version

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

If you need to run the scripts locally, follow these steps:

Create the shell file in the root directory. We will use run_script.sh.

touch run_script.sh

Add the shebang line at the top of the sh script file.

#!/bin/sh

Set the configuration environment variables in the shell script following the structure below. Also make sure that the GITHUB_TOKEN is configured in your environment variables.

export INPUT_GITHUB_TOKEN=$(printenv GITHUB_TOKEN)
export INPUT_REPOSITORIES='[
            {
              "organization-name": "Organization Name",
              "repository-name": "example-project",
              "query-labels": ["feature", "bug"],
              "projects-title-filter": ["Project Title 1"]
            }
          ]'
export INPUT_OUTPUT_PATH="/output/directory/path
export INPUT_PROJECT_STATE_MINING="true"
export INPUT_VERBOSE_LOGGING="true"

For running the GitHub action incorporate these commands into the shell script and save it.

cd src || exit 1

python3 main.py

cd .. || exit 1

From the terminal that is in the root of this project, make the script executable:

chmod +x run_script.sh

./run_script.sh

This project uses Pylint tool for static code analysis. Pylint analyses your code without actually running it. It checks for errors, enforces, coding standards, looks for code smells etc. We do exclude the tests/ file from the pylint check.

Pylint displays a global evaluation score for the code, rated out of a maximum score of 10.0. We are aiming to keep our code quality high above the score 9.5.

Follow these steps to run Pylint check locally:

From terminal in the root of the project, run the following command:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

This command will also install a Pylint tool, since it is listed in the project requirements.

Run Pylint on all files that are currently tracked by Git in the project.

pylint $(git ls-files '*.py')

To run Pylint on a specific file, follow the pattern pylint <path_to_file>/<name_of_file>.py.

Example:

pylint living_documentation_generator/generator.py

This is the console expected output example after running the tool:

************* Module main
main.py:30:0: C0116: Missing function or method docstring (missing-function-docstring)

------------------------------------------------------------------
Your code has been rated at 9.41/10 (previous run: 8.82/10, +0.59)

This project uses the Black tool for code formatting. Black aims for consistency, generality, readability and reducing git diffs. The coding style used can be viewed as a strict subset of PEP 8.

The project root file pyproject.toml defines the Black tool configuration. In this project we are accepting the line length of 120 characters. We also do exclude the tests/ file from the black formatting.

Follow these steps to format your code with Black locally:

From terminal in the root of the project, run the following command:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

This command will also install a Black tool, since it is listed in the project requirements.

Run Black on all files that are currently tracked by Git in the project.

black $(git ls-files '*.py')

To run Black on a specific file, follow the pattern black <path_to_file>/<name_of_file>.py.

Example:

black living_documentation_generator/generator.py

This is the console expected output example after running the tool:

All done! ✨ 🍰 ✨
1 file reformatted.

Unit tests are written using Pytest framework. To run alle the tests, use the following command:

pytest tests/

You can modify the directory to control the level of detail or granularity as per your needs.

To run specific test, write the command following the pattern below:

pytest tests/utils/test_utils.py::test_make_issue_key

This project uses pytest-cov plugin to generate test coverage reports. The objective of the project is to achieve a minimal score of 80 %. We do exclude the tests/ file from the coverage report.

To generate the coverage report, run the following command:

pytest --cov=. tests/ --cov-fail-under=80 --cov-report=html

See the coverage report on the path:

htmlcov/index.html

This project uses GitHub Actions for deployment draft creation. The deployment process is semi-automated by a workflow defined in .github/workflows/release_draft.yml.

• Trigger the workflow: The release_draft.yml workflow is triggered on workflow_dispatch.
• Create a new draft release: The workflow creates a new draft release in the repository.
• Finalize the release draft: Edit the draft release to add a title, description, and any other necessary details related to GitHub Action.
• Publish the release: Once the draft is ready, publish the release to make it available to the public.

This feature allows you to define which repositories should be included in the living documentation process. By specifying repositories, you can focus on the most relevant projects for your documentation needs.

• Default Behavior: By default, the action will include all repositories defined in the repositories input parameter. Each repository is defined with its organization name, repository name, and query labels.

This feature allows you to define which projects should be included in the living documentation process. By specifying projects, you can focus on the most relevant projects for your documentation needs.

• Default Behavior: By default, the action will include all projects defined in the repositories. This information is provided by the GitHub API.
• Non-default Example: Use available options to customize which projects are included in the documentation.
  • project-state-mining: false deactivates the mining of project state data from GitHub Projects. If set to false, project state data will not be included in the generated documentation and project related configuration options will be ignored.
  • projects-title-filter: [] filters the repository attached projects by titles, if list is empty all projects are used.

      {
        "organization-name": "absa-group",
        "repository-name": "living-doc-example-project",
        "query-labels": ["feature", "bug"],
        "projects-title-filter": ["Community Outreach Initiatives", "Health Data Analysis"]
       }

The goal is to provide a straightforward view of all issues in a single table, making it easy to see the overall status and details of issues across repositories.

• Default Behavior: By default, the action generates a single table that lists all issues from the defined repositories.

This feature allows you to generate structured output for the living documentation and see a summary index.md page for each fetched repository.

• Default Behavior: By default, the action generates all the documentation in a single directory.
• Non-default Example: Use the structured output feature to organize the generated documentation by organization and repository name.
  • structured-output: true activates the structured output feature.

    output
    |- org 1
      |--repo 1
         |-- issue md page 1
         |-- issue md page 2
         |-- _index.md
    |- org 2
      |--repo 1
         |-- issue md page 1
         |-- _index.md
      |--repo 2
    

We welcome contributions to the Living Documentation Generator! Whether you're fixing bugs, improving documentation, or proposing new features, your help is appreciated.

Before contributing, please review our contribution guidelines for more detailed information.

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. It is a liberal license that allows you great freedom in using, modifying, and distributing this software, while also providing an express grant of patent rights from contributors to users.

For more details, see the LICENSE file in the repository.

If you need help with using or contributing to Living Documentation Generator Action, or if you have any questions or feedback, don't hesitate to reach out:

• Issue Tracker: For technical issues or feature requests, use the GitHub Issues page.
• Discussion Forum: For general questions and discussions, join our GitHub Discussions forum.