Link Updater

A GitHub Action to automatically update links across your repository files. Perfect for maintaining documentation, updating deprecated URLs, or managing repository-wide link changes.

Features

• 🔄 Automatically updates URLs across multiple files and directories
• ⚙️ Configurable through YAML file
• 📁 Supports multiple file types (md, html, etc.)
• 🎯 Selective path processing
• ⛔ Link ignore list support
• 🔑 Template and environment variable support
• 📝 Detailed logging and error reporting

Quick Start

1. Create a workflow file .github/workflows/link-updater.yml:

name: Update Repository Links
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  update-links:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/[email protected]
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0

      - uses: iamvikshan/[email protected]
        with:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_TOKEN }}

Action Inputs

Input	Required	Default	Description
GITHUB_TOKEN	No	github.token	GitHub token for repository access
CONFIG_PATH	No	.github/links-config.yml	Path to configuration file

Configuration Options

2. Create a configuration file .github/links-config.yml The configuration file (default: .github/links-config.yml) supports the following options:

# Directories/files to process
# if not specified, the action will process all files in the repository
paths:
  - 'docs'
  - 'src/components'
  - '.'

# File patterns to include
# if both paths and files are not specified, the action will process all files in the repository
# if only paths are specified, the action will process all files in the specified directories
files:
  - '*.md'
  - 'README'
# Custom link and keyword replacements
# optional only if githubUrls is specified
links:
  - old: 'https://old-domain.com/docs'
    new: 'https://new-domain.com/documentation'
  - old: 'https://discord.gg/oldlink'
    new: 'https://discord.gg/newlink'
  # one word only, else it will be treated as a link
  - old: 'oldkeyword'
    new: 'newkeyword'

# Links/patterns to ignore
# optional, defaults 'node_modules'
ignore:
  - 'node_modules'
  - '*.test.ts'
  - 'https://keep-this-link.com'

Important

links cannot be empty if githubUrls is not specified

Advanced Usage

Using GitHub Context Variables

You can use GitHub context variables in your configuration:

links:
  - old: 'https://github.com/old/repo'
    new: ${{ github.repository }}
  - old: 'https://example.com/docs'
    new: ${{ secrets.NEW_DOCS_URL }}

# Automatic GitHub URL processing
githubUrls:
  types:
    - 'username' # Will update any github.com/username references and only those, not the repo or sponsors
    - 'repo' # Will update any github.com/username/repo references
    - 'sponsors' # Will update any github.com/sponsors/username references
    # - 'all'     # Uncomment to update all GitHub URLs

Multiple File Type Processing

Process different file types with specific patterns:

files:
  - 'README' # Simple filename
  - 'config.yml' # Filename with extension
  - '*.md' # All markdown files

Selective Path Processing

Choose specific directories or files to process:

paths:
  - '.' # Process entire repository
  - 'docs' # Process entire docs directory
  - 'src/components' # Process specific subdirectory
  - 'README.md' # Process specific file
  - 'docs/index.html' # Specific file in a directory

Whether to Create a Pull Request

# Create PR instead of direct commits
# optional, default `false`
createPr: true

Custom commit message

# optional, defaults 'chore: update repository links and keywords[skip ci]'
commitMsg: 'chore: update repository links and references[skip ci]'

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

License

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

Support

If you encounter any problems or have questions, please open an issue in the repository.

Security

This action requires a GH_TOKEN with write permissions to update repository files. The token can be automatically provided by GitHub Actions but needs to be explicitly passed to the action.

permissions:
  contents: write
  pull-requests: write

For security best practices:

• Only grant the minimum required permissions
• Be careful when using custom configuration files
• Review the link replacement patterns before deployment

Acknowledgments

This action was inspired by the need to maintain consistent documentation and links across repositories. You can say i am lazy but after forking repositories, i have to update the links in the README.md file and i thought why not automate this process. So here it is.