REST API endpoints for pull requests should mention Allow GitHub Actions to create and approve pull requests

[jsoref]

Code of Conduct

• I have read and agree to the GitHub Docs project's Code of Conduct

What article on docs.github.com is affected?

https://docs.github.com/en/rest/pulls/pulls?apiVersion=2022-11-28#create-a-pull-request

What part(s) of the article would you like to see updated?

Add a subsection github-actions

Possibly that just links to https://docs.github.com/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/enabling-features-for-your-repository/managing-github-actions-settings-for-a-repository#preventing-github-actions-from-creating-or-approving-pull-requests

Additional information

GitHub workflows that use gh pr ... or the api equivalent trigger this error:

{
  "message": "GitHub Actions is not permitted to create or approve pull requests.",
  "documentation_url": "https://docs.github.com/rest/pulls/pulls#create-a-pull-request",
  "status": "403"
}

Which points to the above document but the above document makes no mention of this knob.

[subatoi]

Thanks for raising this, @jsoref

Before I triage it: just to run it by you, would it make more sense for the error message to return a link to https://docs.github.com/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/enabling-features-for-your-repository/managing-github-actions-settings-for-a-repository#preventing-github-actions-from-creating-or-approving-pull-requests instead of https://docs.github.com/rest/pulls/pulls#create-a-pull-request ?

[jsoref]

@subatoi oh, yeah, I think so. As you already know that the user is GitHub-actions and that it has generic pull-requests: write, sending to that doc makes way more sense!

Certainly, if you're willing to special case the error message, that'd be great. Thinking about how the code has to work, it really should already be in a special case, so, yes please!

[jsoref]

Note that that the doc might need some adjusting to say "if you were directed here by an error, it's because you need to toggle this feature or use a dedicated account instead".

[subatoi]

Just to set expectations appropriately, I can only make recommendations about the error message, but either way I agree this could be improved. Since it relates to the REST docs, I'm going to transfer this to an internal issue (all of the comments here will be noted). If it's feasible to change the error message URL—it might need to be shortened—I'll make that recommendation, but otherwise I agree we could look at adding a section here instead, per your original recommendation.

Many thanks for bringing this to our attention

[docs-bot]

Thank you for opening this issue! Updates to this documentation must be made internally. I have copied your issue to an internal issue, so I will close this issue.