GitHub Actions release Sanction tutorial

Use the Agent Tick GitHub Action to pause a release workflow until a human approves the exact release candidate. GitHub Actions still builds, tags, publishes, and deploys; Agent Tick only routes the bounded Sanction decision and records the response.

This pattern is useful when a release job can run unattended but should not publish until a reviewer has checked the tag, commit SHA, changelog, timeout window, and rollback owner.

What the reviewer should see

Keep the request short and reproducible. Include:

• release tag or version
• immutable commit SHA
• changelog or GitHub Release URL
• release target, such as npm, app store, container registry, or production environment
• timeout window and what happens if nobody responds
• rollback or hotfix owner for production-impacting releases

Do not include secrets, bearer tokens, private keys, cookies, .env files, raw logs, full agent prompts/transcripts, or customer data in title, body, command, or metadata.

Required secrets

Store these values as GitHub Actions secrets before enabling the gate:

Secret	Purpose
AGENT_TICK_SERVER	Hosted app/API or self-hosted Agent Tick server URL, for example https://app.agenttick.sh or your own self-hosted URL.
AGENT_TICK_TOKEN	Agent Tick agent token scoped for the release workflow.

Use separate Agent Tick tokens for release workflows when possible so revocation does not affect unrelated CI jobs.

Workflow example

The example below creates a draft release gate for workflow_dispatch and release events. It checks out the exact SHA, builds and tests before the gate, then publishes only when the Agent Tick Sanction returns approve.

name: gated-release

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      release-tag:
        description: Release tag, for example v0.1.0
        required: true
      changelog-url:
        description: Changelog or release notes URL
        required: true
  release:
    types: [published]

permissions:
  contents: read

jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Resolve release context
        id: release-context
        shell: bash
        run: |
          set -euo pipefail
          tag="${{ github.event.inputs.release-tag || github.ref_name }}"
          changelog="${{ github.event.inputs.changelog-url || github.event.release.html_url }}"
          sha="${{ github.sha }}"
          echo "tag=${tag}" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
          echo "sha=${sha}" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
          echo "changelog=${changelog}" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"

      - name: Build and test candidate
        run: |
          corepack enable
          pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
          pnpm test
          pnpm build

      - name: Wait for Agent Tick release Sanction
        id: sanction
        uses: self-deprecated/agent-tick/integrations/github-actions/request-Response@v0.1.0
        with:
          server: ${{ secrets.AGENT_TICK_SERVER }}
          token: ${{ secrets.AGENT_TICK_TOKEN }}
          title: Publish ${{ github.repository }} ${{ steps.release-context.outputs.tag }}?
          body: |
            Repository: ${{ github.repository }}
            Tag: ${{ steps.release-context.outputs.tag }}
            Commit: ${{ steps.release-context.outputs.sha }}
            Changelog: ${{ steps.release-context.outputs.changelog }}
            Timeout: 30m; no response blocks the release.
            Rollback owner: release captain
          command: pnpm publish --access public --provenance
          timeout: 30m

      - name: Publish release artifact
        if: ${{ steps.sanction.outputs.choice-id == 'approve' }}
        run: pnpm publish --access public --provenance

For a complete copyable file, see examples/github-actions/release-sanction.yml.

How denial and timeout behave

The composite action exits with the same status code as agent-tick sanction. A denial or timeout should normally fail the guarded job and stop the publish step. If your workflow needs a softer path, branch on steps.sanction.outputs.choice-id and keep the protected publish/deploy command behind choice-id == 'approve'.

Do not put the protected publish command inside Agent Tick. The command input is reviewer context only; GitHub Actions remains the execution environment.

Checklist before shipping

• The release candidate is already built/tested before the Sanction step.
• The request body includes tag, SHA, changelog URL, target, timeout, and owner.
• The Response text contains no secrets, raw logs, prompts, or customer data.
• The publish/deploy step runs only when choice-id == 'approve'.
• Denial and timeout block by default or route to a documented manual recovery path.