ELN Dispatch Action

Composite GitHub Action that triggers an ELN image tag update on dj-gitops. After a dashboard image is built and pushed, this action dispatches a repository_dispatch event that creates an auto-PR to update the tenant's kustomize overlay newTag. Merging that PR triggers an ArgoCD sync to deploy the new image.

Setup

1. Create a GitHub PAT

Create a fine-grained personal access token (or classic PAT) with repo scope on datajoint-company/dj-gitops. A single token is used for all dashboard repos.

2. Add the token as an organization secret

Add the PAT as an organization secret named GITOPS_DISPATCH_TOKEN in each GitHub org that has dashboard repos. This makes the secret available to all dashboard repos in that org without per-repo configuration.

3. Add the action step to your build workflow

In your dashboard repo's eln-build-publish.yaml (or equivalent), add the dispatch step after the image push step. See Usage below.

Migrating existing dashboard repos

For repos that already have eln-build-publish.yaml:

1. Add GITOPS_DISPATCH_TOKEN as an org secret (once per GitHub org)
2. Add the action step at the end of the build job
3. Remove any manual deployment steps (the old deploy-eln workflow in dj-gitops no longer exists)

For the template repo used to create new dashboard projects, update the template's workflow so all new repos include the dispatch step automatically.

Usage

Add this step to your dashboard build workflow after the image push:

- name: Update GitOps image tag
  uses: datajoint-company/eln-dispatch-action@v1
  with:
    tenant_name: org_project
    image_tag: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.version }}
    environment: prod
    token: ${{ secrets.GITOPS_DISPATCH_TOKEN }}

Full workflow example

name: Build and Deploy ELN Dashboard
on:
  push:
    tags:
      - '*'

jobs:
  build-and-dispatch:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Build and push image
        # ... your existing build steps ...

      - name: Update GitOps image tag
        uses: datajoint-company/eln-dispatch-action@v1
        with:
          tenant_name: org_project
          image_tag: ${{ github.ref_name }}
          environment: prod
          token: ${{ secrets.GITOPS_DISPATCH_TOKEN }}

Inputs

Input	Required	Default	Description
tenant_name	Yes		ELN tenant overlay directory name (e.g., org_project). Must match [a-zA-Z0-9_-]+.
image_tag	Yes		Image tag to deploy (e.g., 1.2.0-sha-abc123). Must match [a-zA-Z0-9._-]+.
environment	Yes	prod	Target environment: qa or prod.
token	Yes		GitHub token with repo scope on datajoint-company/dj-gitops.

What happens after dispatch

1. dj-gitops receives the eln-image-update event
2. update_service_images.py validates the payload and updates newTag in applications/k8s/kustomization/eln/overlay/{environment}/{tenant_name}/kustomization.yaml
3. peter-evans/create-pull-request creates a PR titled chore: update {tenant_name} ({environment})
4. Merging the PR triggers ArgoCD to sync the new image (~3-5 min)