How to Block PRs Missing Tests or a Changelog

Compare the list of changed files: if source changed but no test or changelog did, fail the job.

Use tj-actions/changed-files to capture which files changed, then a shell step that exits non-zero when source paths changed without a matching test or CHANGELOG.md update.

Steps

Run tj-actions/changed-files to list changed paths.
Bucket the paths into source, tests, and changelog.
Exit 1 when source changed but tests and changelog did not.

Workflow

.github/workflows/ci.yml

on: [pull_request]
jobs:
  guard:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - id: changed
        uses: tj-actions/changed-files@v45
      - name: Require tests or changelog
        env:
          FILES: ${{ steps.changed.outputs.all_changed_files }}
        run: |
          echo "$FILES" | tr ' ' '\n' > files.txt
          src=$(grep -E '^src/' files.txt || true)
          tests=$(grep -E '(\.test\.|/tests?/)' files.txt || true)
          log=$(grep -E '^CHANGELOG\.md$' files.txt || true)
          if [ -n "$src" ] && [ -z "$tests" ] && [ -z "$log" ]; then
            echo "Source changed without tests or a changelog entry."
            exit 1
          fi

Gotchas

Quote the file list; paths with spaces break the naive split otherwise.
Allow an override label (for example no-tests-needed) so genuine exceptions are not blocked.

How to Block PRs Missing Tests or a Changelog

Steps

Workflow

Gotchas

Related guides