Enabling Actions for GitHub Enterprise Server

When automating a GitHub Enterprise Server deployment, the set-settings API can be used to pass a settings.json object to configure the server. The settings.json object can be retreived from the get-settings API of your enterprise server.

If however you want to enable actions, the administrator usually needs to do it from the administration console of the GitHub Enterprise server.

It turns out you can automate this too by passing some “hidden” settings. First you will need to make sure the enterprise.feature_toggles.actions.enabled setting is true and then add the enterprise.actions_storage settings.

S3 example with only the settings for enabling Actions shown:

{
  "enterprise": {
    "feature_toggles": {
      "actions": {
        "enabled": true
      }
    },
    "actions_storage": {
      "blob_provider": "s3",
      "s3": {
        "bucket_name": "<my-bucket-name>",
        "service_url": "https://s3.<my-aws-region>.amazonaws.com",
        "access_key_id": "<redacted>",
        "access_secret": "<redacted>"
      }
    }
  },
  "run_list": [
    "recipe[enterprise-configure]"
  ]
}

Azure example with only the settings for enabling Actions shown:

{
  "enterprise": {
    "feature_toggles": {
      "actions": {
        "enabled": true
      }
    },
    "actions_storage": {
      "blob_provider": "azure",
      "azure": {
        "connection_string": "<my-connection-string>"
      }
    }
  },
  "run_list": [
    "recipe[enterprise-configure]"
  ]
}

Note: If you access the get-settings API after enabling actions, the storage secrets will not be returned.