What is gh-actions-security?

A security checklist for GitHub Actions, the service that runs automated jobs in a GitHub repository.

Use it when creating or editing files in .github/workflows/ to pin actions, limit permissions, and run the zizmor security checker.

It helps prevent workflow changes from using mutable action versions, excessive permissions, or unsafe configuration.

gh-actions-security — Skill for Claude Code by ericboehs

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent

npx skills add ericboehs/claude-plugins --skill gh-actions-security

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ericboehs/claude-plugins

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install gh-actions-security, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 1 skill.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ericboehs/claude-plugins/gh-actions-security/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/ericboehs/claude-plugins/gh-actions-security)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/ericboehs/claude-plugins/gh-actions-security"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ericboehs/claude-plugins/gh-actions-security/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/ericboehs/claude-plugins/gh-actions-security"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ericboehs/claude-plugins/gh-actions-security.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 42 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 975 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.

Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00042	$0.00975
Opus 5.5	$0.00017	$0.00390
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00008	$0.00195
Haiku 4.5	$0.00004	$0.00097

Measured 2mo ago against content hash 95d75ec58fda, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

gh-actions-security scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2mo ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

plugins/gh-actions-security/skills/gh-actions-security/SKILL.md · 111 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 111 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

GitHub Actions Security

Apply this checklist any time a workflow file is created or modified. Fix what's cheap inline; flag the rest.

1. Pin actions to a full commit SHA

Tags are mutable — a compromised action repo can rewrite v4 (see the tj-actions attack). Pin the SHA and keep the tag as a comment:

- uses: actions/checkout@9c091bb21b7c1c1d1991bb908d89e4e9dddfe3e0 # v7.0.0

Resolve latest release → SHA:

tag=$(gh api repos/OWNER/ACTION/releases/latest --jq .tag_name)
gh api repos/OWNER/ACTION/git/ref/tags/$tag --jq '.object | "\(.type) \(.sha)"'
# if type is "tag" (annotated), deref once more: gh api repos/OWNER/ACTION/git/tags/SHA --jq .object.sha

Skim the major-version release notes for breaking changes before jumping versions.

2. Least-privilege permissions

Default-deny at the top, request per-job with a comment saying why:

permissions: {} # default-deny; jobs request exactly what they need

jobs:
  build:
    permissions:
      contents: write # push generated commits back to this repo

3. Lint with zizmor

zizmor .github/workflows/FILE.yml          # brew install zizmor
zizmor --persona=auditor .github/workflows/FILE.yml   # pedantic pass

Known-acceptable finding: artipacked (persist-credentials) when the job pushes commits — otherwise add persist-credentials: false to checkout.

4. Untrusted input

Never interpolate attacker-influenced context (github.event.* — PR titles, branch names, issue bodies, commit messages) directly into run:. Route through env: and use the variable quoted.
Avoid pull_request_target and workflow_run with fork PRs unless you fully understand the checkout implications. Treat fork PRs as hostile.
If the workflow runs a script that ingests external data (API responses, comments, filenames), verify the script's shell-out surface: sanitized interpolations, -F file for commit messages, no eval.

5. Secrets

Reference secrets in step-level env:, never inline in run: commands.
PATs: prefer fine-grained scoped to one repo; classic PATs are all-or- nothing per scope (e.g. gist scope = ALL gists). Set an expiration and rotate. Gotcha: fine-grained PATs do NOT cover the gist API.
Never echo/log secret values; if one hits a log, delete the log AND rotate the secret.

Read the full file on GitHub · 111 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

2mo ago First seen · 111 lines · 42 tokens per session scan A 95d75ec58fda

Subscribe to this mod's changes

gh-actions-security is a skill published in the GitHub repository ericboehs/claude-plugins (2 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 42 tokens to every session and 975 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

CI and CD DevOps and cloud Security

gh-actions-security next to 6 skills from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
gh-actions-securityericboehs/claude-plugins	Skill	2	2mo ago	MIT	A	42	Claude Code
chinese-git-workflowjnMetaCode/superpowers-zh	Skill	8.5k	12d ago	MIT	A	69	Claude Code
atmos-profilescloudposse/atmos	Skill	1.4k	today	Apache-2.0	A	35	Claude Code
webhook-managementhoangsonww/Claude-Code-Agent-Monitor	Skill	1.2k	yesterday	MIT	A	56	Claude Code, Codex
monorepo-managementwshobson/agents	Skill	42k	2d ago	MIT	C	54	Claude Code
managing-github-actions-secretsPostHog/posthog-foss	Skill	728	today	MIT	A	67	Claude Code, Codex
postman-newman-automationLambdaTest/agent-skills	Skill	391	2d ago	MIT	A	156	Claude Code, Codex