Emergency PR GitHub App

This project is a probot app deploying to AWS Lambda using aws sam. The purpose of this app is to provide a way for developers to bypass approval and checks in order to merge an emergency change to the protected main branch while ensuring that this bypass doesn't go unnoticed by creating an issue and/or slack notification.

The app listens for Pull Request events where action=labeled and can do 4 things:

1. Approve an emergency PR
2. Merge the emergency PR, bypassing approvals and checks
3. Create an issue to audit the emergency PR
4. Send notification via slack

Each of the above can be toggled on or off using the following environment variables which are meant to be self explanatory: APPROVE_PR, MERGE_PR, CREATE_ISSUE, SLACK_NOTIFY Setting each of the above to true will enable the feature. Any other value will disable the feature.

To configure the emergency label this app is looking for, set EMERGENCY_LABEL env var.

The issue this app will create can be configured by setting the ISSUE_TITLE, and ISSUE_BODY_FILE. The ISSUE_BODY_FILE is a markdown file used to create the issue. The # in that file will be replaced with a link to the PR and display the PR#. That link will look like this...
#19

The slack notification can be configured by setting the SLACK_MESSAGE_FILE. There are some dynamic replacements in this file that occur before the message is sent:

• #pr is replaced with the url to the pull request
• #l is replaced with the label configured in EMERGENCY_LABEL
• #i is replaced with the url to the issue created, if issue creation is enabled

Environment setup

Create GitHub App

Create the GH App in your org or repo. Define a client secrent. Generate a private key.

Grant repository permissions

Set Contents access to Read & write
Set Issues access to Read & write
Set Pull Requests access to Read & write

Grant organization permissions

Set members access to Read-only

Subscripe to events

Check Issues
Check Issue comment
Check Pull request

Allow app to bypass branch protection

If you want the app to merge the emergency PR, and have configured "Require status checks to pass before merging" in your branch protection rule, you will need to allow the app to bypass branch protection.

If you want the app to merge the emergency PR, and have configured "Restrict who can push to matching branches" in your branch projection rule, you will need to allow the app push access to the matching branches.

Once you have the bot user setup and the GitHub app configured you are ready to deploy!

Create a Slack App

1. Navigate to your slack workspace https://<workspace-name>.slack.com/home
2. In the menu on the left, under Other, click the API link
3. Click Create an app
4. Create the app using the manifest file emergency-pr-manifest.yml

Deployment

Get the following details about your GitHub app:

• APP_ID
• WEBHOOK_SECRET
• PRIVATE_KEY (base64 encoded)

You will need to base64 encode the private key.

You will also need a user and PAT with admin permissions on the repos in order to merge bypassing checks and required approvals. These will be supplied to the app as the following env vars:

• GITHUB_USER
• GITHUB_PAT

Get the following details about your Slack app:

• SLACK_BOT_TOKEN

Also go find the SLACK_CHANNEL_ID for the channel you want to send notifications to.
You will need to configure the contents of the slack message by setting value of SLACK_MESSAGE_FILE and editing the contents of that file.

You will need to decide the label that this app looks for, the contents of the issue, and the assignee of the issue:

• EMERGENCY_LABEL This is the label that indicates an emergency PR
• ISSUE_TITLE This is the title of the issue created
• ISSUE_BODY_FILE This is the file containing the body of the issue created
• ISSUE_ASSIGNEES This is a comma separated list of the issue assignees

Optionally, you can define a team name in the AUTHORIZED_TEAM variable. The app will consider members of this team authorized to use this app. The app will add a comment on the PR if an user who is not a member of this team attemps to do any of the following:

• Opens a PR with the TRIGGER_STRING in the body
• Adds a PR comment with the TRIGGER_STRING in the body
• Adds the EMERGENCY_LABEL to a PR

The comment will read:

@username is not authorized to apply the emergency label.

To make the emergency label permanent set EMERGENCY_LABEL_PERMANENT to true. Doing this will cause the app to reapply the emergency label if it is removed. To trigger the label (and therefore everything configured) set TRIGGER_STRING to the value you want the app to look for in PRs and PR comments.

1. Setup your aws cli creds
2. set your aws profile by running export AWS_PROFILE=<profile>
3. run sam build
4. run sam deploy --guided You will be prompted for inputs names similar to the environment variables above.

Subsequent deploys to the same stack to the default environment...

1. run sam build
2. run sam deploy

Local setup

Install dependencies

npm install

Copy .env-sample to .env and fill in the environment variables as needed. See above.

Start the server

npm start

Follow the instructions to register a new GitHub app.

Docker

# 1. Run npm install
npm install

# 2. Build container
docker build -t emergency-pull-request .

# 3. Srouce your .env file
export $(cat .env | xargs)

# 3. Start container
docker run \
    -e APP_ID=$APP_ID \
    -e PRIVATE_KEY=$PRIVATE_KEY \
    -e WEBHOOK_SECRET=$WEBHOOK_SECRET \
    -e GITHUB_PAT=$GITHUB_PAT \
    -e GITHUB_USER=$GITHUB_USER \
    -e APPROVE_PR=$APPROVE_PR \
    -e CREATE_ISSUE=$CREATE_ISSUE \
    -e MERGE_PR=$MERGE_PR \
    -e ISSUE_TITLE=$ISSUE_TITLE \
    -e ISSUE_BODY_FILE=$ISSUE_BODY_FILE \
    -e ISSUE_ASSIGNEES=$ISSUE_ASSIGNEES \
    -e EMERGENCY_LABEL=$EMERGENCY_LABEL \
    emergency-pull-request

Debugging locally

There are two options to debug locally.

Debug via unit tests

1. Intall nyc and mocha: npm install -g nyc mocha
2. From the VSCode RUN AND DEBUG menu select Mocha and click the green arrow to start debugging.

Debug by launching probot locally and sending it a payload

1. Point your GitHub app to your local using something like smee.io
2. Copy .env-sample to .env and populate with values specific for your GitHub app. For the PRIVATE_KEY replace newlines with \\n to make the string value a single line.
3. From the VSCode RUN AND DEBUG menu select Launch Probot and click the green arrow to start debugging.

License

ISC