Error auto-tag when merging a branch into another branch - unknown revision or path not in the working tree.

[scottcousens-nas]

When merging a developer feature branch into a release branch (off master), this plugin throws an error.

In the section looking for merge commits, get the following error:

++ git log release/2.2patch..HEAD --format=%B
fatal: ambiguous argument 'release/2.2patch..HEAD': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.

I have a lot of commits, many with tags.
Go back to a commit/tag referencing our last release (lets say tag v2.2)
Create a release branch off this
Create a dev branch off this release branch
Add updates/commits to this dev branch and merge into the release branch (the auto-tag runs to create a new tag on the release branch)
This is where we hit the above error

To reproduce or setup the situation, assume a repository with a number of commits. Not at the top we have a tag referencing a past release (v2.2), but dont yet have a branch for it - the commit is on master.

git checkout v2.2
git checkout -b release/2.2patch
git push --set-upstream origin release/2.2patch
git checkout -b  dev/2.2patch
git push --set-upstream origin dev/2.2patch
<update files>
git add src/feature.py
git commit -m 'fix feature'
git push
<PR from dev/2.2patch to release/2.2patch>
<merge PR>
<workflow calling auto-tag runs - verbose output snippet>
++ git show -s --format=%B
++ git log release/2.2patch..HEAD --format=%B
fatal: ambiguous argument 'release/2.2patch..HEAD': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.
Use '--' to separate paths from revisions, like this:
'git <command> [<revision>...] -- [<file>...]'
++ git log 34190c7bcbcddd87c4d6f8be0ea39bfca1ccc9db..30da0757b763061e56dc29f9cae97503f77f3617 --format=%B

To manually reproduce the error, I can now clone the repository, checkout dev/2.2patch branch (release/2.2patch is not in the workspace.) I can reproduce the error manually...

> git clone <repo>
> cd <repodir>
> git checkout dev/2.2patch
> git log release/2.2patch..HEAD
fatal: ambiguous argument 'release/2.2patch..HEAD': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.

However if I prefix with 'origin' in the git log call, this now works:

> git log origin/release/2.2patch..HEAD
commit 94eb5e456ab72c0509bed12270a8031c39c7199b (HEAD -> dev/2.2patch, origin/dev/2.2patch)
Author: xxxxxxxx
Date:   yyyyyyyy

[scottcousens-nas]

By doing a full checkout, I also managed to eliminate this error.
Here is the step before the github-tag-action:

        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          ref: ${{ github.event.pull_request.merge_commit_sha }}
          ##fetch-depth: '0'      <--- comment tbis out

[sbe-arg]

According to checkout documentation.

# Number of commits to fetch. 0 indicates all history for all branches and tags. # Default: 1 fetch-depth: ''

Not sure what a full checkout is in your case.

But glad you found a fix to your case problem.

[scottcousens-nas]

After mucking about with this more today, it appears that fetch-depth thing did not 'fix' the issue, I'm still hitting it.
How do I get this issue reopened? @sbe-arg

[scottcousens-nas]

Ok, so I think I found another workaround that actually appears to work. It may drive a README/documentation update.

When I call actions/checkout@v4, if a SHA is supplied (default uses $ GITHUB _ SHA I believe, or if you specify with: ref: ${{ github.event.pull_request.merge_commit_sha }} as per readme) then I get this failure.
However, when I use a head or tags type ref: for the checkout step ( ${{ github.ref_head }} ) then github-tag-actions appears to work as expected and I dont get this error.
This is what we have that appears to work as expected....

     - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          ref: ${{ github.ref_name }}

      - name: Push updated tag
        uses: anothrNick/github-tag-action@1.67.0
        env:
          DEFAULT_BUMP: minor
          WITH_V: true
          RELEASE_BRANCHES: master,release/*
          TAG_CONTEXT: branch
          BRANCH_HISTORY: last

Note that the plugin still runs successfully, even if it hits that fatal: ambiguous argument 'release/2.2patch..HEAD': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. error. I have to look at the actual output of the plugin to see the error. The resulting tag may or may not be what you want based on TAG_CONTEXT and using a non-master/main branch (in our case).

[nikitajz]

I was able to reproduce the issue successfully 😅

I was using a fresh repo so the tag "0.0.0" indeed didn't exist.
But a new tag was created successfully, so then the problem happens when the custom tag is provided, unnecessary steps are still performed (particularly retrieving existing tags).

 * [new branch]      release/v0.0.1-dev8 -> origin/release/v0.0.1-dev8
 * [new tag]         v0.0.1-dev8         -> v0.0.1-dev8
fatal: ambiguous argument '0.0.0': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.
Use '--' to separate paths from revisions, like this:
'git <command> [<revision>...] -- [<file>...]'
History:
---
---
Bumping tag 0.0.0 - New tag 0.1.0
EVENT: creating local tag v0.0.1-dev9
EVENT: pushing tag v0.0.1-dev9 to origin

The solution is likely to skip semver calculations altogether if a custom tag argument is provided, but this likely won't solve the initial issue.

Full workflow to reproduce:

on:
  pull_request:
    types:
      - closed
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  tag_head_ref:
    if: ${{ github.event.pull_request.merged == true }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          ref: ${{ github.ref_name }}

      - run: |
          echo "Merge commit: ${{ github.event.pull_request.merge_commit_sha }}. Base branch: ${{ github.base_ref}} Merged branch: ${{ github.head_ref}}"
      - run: | 
          echo "${{ github.head_ref }}" | sed 's/release\//TAG_VERSION=/'>> "$GITHUB_ENV"
      - run: |
          echo "Tag version: [$TAG_VERSION]"

      - name: Bump version and push tag
        uses: anothrNick/github-tag-action@1.67.0 # Don't use @master or @v1 unless you're happy to test the latest version
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} # if you don't want to set write permissions use a PAT token
          CUSTOM_TAG: ${{ env.TAG_VERSION }}