So it expires at an hour, is there any workaround for this? I too want a long-ish running task to then comment or create an issue, but I’m getting the 401 error. What options do I have?

Only workaround I found is to create personal access token, add it to secrets (say, PAT), and use ${{ secrets.PAT }} instead:

- name: Create Release
        id: create_release
        uses: actions/create-release@v1
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.PAT }}
        with:
          tag_name: ${{ github.ref }}
          ....

But this is suboptimal, since it actions would be from your name, not from name of the bot.

So it expires at an hour, is there any workaround for this? I too want a long-ish running task to then comment or create an issue, but I’m getting the 401 error. What options do I have?

@mikedombo - That’s a great question. I think it’s worth mentioning that the Authenticating with the GITHUB_TOKEN: About the GITHUB_TOKEN secret article recently updated with this note:

Before each job begins, GitHub fetches an installation access token for the job. The token expires when the job is finished.

Given this documented behavior, you could create a workflow with many jobs, where each job cites the GITHUB_TOKEN in an environment variable. I’m wondering if that would help with what you’re looking to accomplish?