support `auto-fix` option to fix code format automatically in PR?

[shenxianpeng]

Is your idea related to an existing feature?

No response

Describe the behavior you would like

When clang-format detects style failures, the action currently leaves fixing to the developer.

This issue proposes an auto-fix: that automatically commits the formatted changes back to the PR branch — eliminating the manual fix-and-repush cycle for purely mechanical style issues.

Comparable patterns exist in the ecosystem today (e.g. autofix.ci). A native fix option would lower the barrier to adoption and reduce CI noise significantly.

Proposed behavior:

- uses: cpp-linter/cpp-linter-action@v2
  with:
    auto-fix: 'true'

Describe alternatives you have considered

No response

Additional context

No response

[2bndy5]

I feel the need to point out that autofix.ci is a GH App, not a GH Action.

GH App vs GH Action

What's the difference?

We don't pay money to host cpp-linter software on a server.

More technically, we rely on user-supplied tokens and the permissions they are granted. With GH apps, the user/org only needs to grant the app permissions, and the app requests a new (short-lived) token every time it runs.

Why is this important?

This is an important difference because the permissions needed to actually push a commit to a remote.

• By not using the default github.token, an auto-pushed commit can trigger new CI runs.
• When using the github.token, an auto-pushed commit cannot trigger new CI runs.

Sure, we can document how to work around permission problems. But there will always be problems with consumers running this GH Action in a PR that originated from a fork.

Tip

To do a git push, the contents: write permission must be granted to the token used by actions/checkout.

jobs:
  auto-fix-lints:
    # This permissions map only applies to `github.token`
    # permissions:
    #   contents: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v6
        with:
          # a Personal Access Token can have its
          # own permissions separate from `github.token`
          token: ${{ secrets.MY_PAT }}

The above example will allow an auto-pushed commit to trigger a new CI runs.

---

I'm not trying to discourage this feature. I'm just trying to be pragmatic.

[shenxianpeng]

Good point! I see autofix action works becaue it installed GH app first.

[github-actions]

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