microsoft / microsoft/python-environment-tools
Make quality snapshot comments safe for fork PRs
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- Dominant language
- Rust
- Stars
- 207
- Forks
- 45
- PR merge metrics
- No merged PRs in 30d
Description
Problem
Pull requests from forks receive a read-only GITHUB_TOKEN, even when a pull_request workflow declares pull-requests: write. The performance and coverage workflows currently invoke marocchino/sticky-pull-request-comment before running their substantive work.
PR #521 reproduced the failure across all performance and coverage jobs:
- the workflow token had
PullRequests: readandSecret source: None; - the initial sticky-comment step failed with
Resource not accessible by integration; - normal benchmark/coverage steps were then skipped because the preceding step failed;
always()upload/comparison steps ran withoutmetrics.jsonorlcov.info, producing cascading snapshot failures; and- the final sticky-comment step failed with the same permission error.
The regular build, test, lint, and environment jobs passed, confirming that this was a fork-permission failure rather than a problem with the action pins in PR #521.
Security constraint
Fork workflows must remain untrusted and read-only:
- do not grant fork pull requests write access or repository secrets;
- do not use
pull_request_targetto execute or otherwise consume untrusted pull-request code; and - do not weaken the fail-closed behavior of the actual performance and coverage gates.
Tasks
- Detect fork pull requests before invoking PR-comment-writing actions.
- Skip both in-progress and final sticky-comment steps when the token cannot write, while allowing the benchmark/coverage work and snapshot comparisons to continue.
- Ensure comment publishing itself is non-gating: a comment API failure must not suppress or replace the underlying quality-gate result.
- Preserve sticky performance and coverage comments for same-repository pull requests.
- Keep reports available to fork contributors through job summaries and uploaded artifacts.
- Audit other
pull_requestworkflows for write operations with the same fork-token assumption.
Acceptance criteria
- A fork PR runs the complete performance and coverage jobs using only a read-only token.
- Fork runs do not attempt to create or update PR comments and do not report
Resource not accessible by integration. - Performance or coverage regressions still fail their jobs for both fork and same-repository PRs.
- Missing or malformed benchmark/coverage output still fails closed.
- Same-repository PRs continue receiving sticky snapshot comments.
- Fork reports remain inspectable in the GitHub step summary and artifacts.
- The solution does not use
pull_request_target, expose secrets, or grant write permissions to untrusted fork code.
Reproduction
- PR: #521
- Performance run: https://github.com/microsoft/python-environment-tools/actions/runs/31991321814
- Coverage run: https://github.com/microsoft/python-environment-tools/actions/runs/31991321855
Contributor guide
No contributing guide indexed for this repository
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start with the performance and coverage pull_request workflows, especially their in-progress and final marocchino/sticky-pull-request-comment steps. Use PR #521 and the linked performance and coverage runs to reproduce the fork-token failure. Done means fork jobs complete with read-only access while gates remain fail-closed, same-repository comments continue, and reports remain available in summaries and artifacts.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- github-actions
- Domain
- ci-cd, security
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 65/100