Adding Labels Automatically Using GitHub Actions

Photo by Richy Great on Unsplash

As a LoopBack maintainer, we sometimes add labels to the GitHub issues and pull requests to give others better idea what the issues/PRs are about without looking into the details. While exploring what GitHub Actions can do, I find the Labeler action very useful for this purpose.

Below is what I’ve done to set it up.

1. Click the Actions tab, if you haven’t set up any GitHub Actions before, you should see the Labeler GitHub Actions towards the bottom of the page.

2. Click the Set up this workflow button.

3. You’ll see something like below to create a .github/workflows/labeler.yml file. Commit this file.

Note: By default, the file name is label.yml . Make sure you have labeler.yml as the file name.

4. Next, create .github/labeler.yml to configure what labels to add.

Say I have the following folder structure. What I want to do is to add labeldocs if the PR changes anything under the docs folder. Similarly for examples and repository labels.

The labeler.yml would look like:

docs: docs/*
example: examples/**/*
repository: packages/repository/*

Then you’re all set! If your PR contains multiple files, the labeler will read all the files and set the labels accordingly.

You can get more information from this Pull Request Labeler page.

Troubleshooting Tips

Issue 1: Got HTTP Error in the labeler check

Make sure you have the following files with the exact file names:

• .github/workflows/labeler.yml
• .github/labeler.yml

Issue 2: Not all the labels were added

It is possible that the .github/labeler.yml didn’t set properly. For files in the subfolder, make sure you have **/* .