Use differen branch for keepalive workflow

[koppor]

The action should not use the current main branch, but some other branch.

I know that with additional steps, this should be possible. Maybe, this should be documented in the README.md. Maybe, it is as simple as

- run: git checkout -b keep-alive

[gautamkrishnar]

you may have branch protection enabled. It is not a common scenario though. You need to disable it https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/configuring-branches-and-merges-in-your-repository/managing-protected-branches/managing-a-branch-protection-rule

Since its not a common scenario we need not have to add it to the docs

[koppor]

I just want to keep the main branch clean. Independent of it being protected or not.

OK, I want it to protect from commits resulting of dumb GitHub company decisions.

[bgctw]

The following should work with a branch other than main.
Although, I need to wait 50 days to see if the commit really works on the different branch.

After creating branch keepalive in the repo, I added the following lines at the end of my CompatHelper.yml action:

- uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          ref: 'keepalive'      # The branch, tag or SHA to checkout. 
- uses: gautamkrishnar/keepalive-workflow@v1

[gautamkrishnar]

Thanks for sharing. Yep, this solution will work just fine. You can try setting time_elapsed to 0 to try it out immediately so you don't need to wait until 50 days.

[koppor]

Note that git checkout -b keep-alive also works.

It stopped working for me as I did not have following content in the workflow:

permissions:
  contents: write

A change near January 19 or January 20 seems to have led to that change.