KBkbolino·Mar 26, 2025
GitHub Actions could use lock files, and they would be useful specifically for composite actions, but they don't really solve the full problem at hand.
First, many GitHub Actions use a Docker image to do their work. This runs into basically the exact same problem in container land. So even if I pin the commit hash of an action, if that action doesn't pin the digest hash of its container image, then it's still ultimately a mutable reference.
Second, lock files don't protect against officially distributed malware when you intentionally update your dependencies. The lock file is designed to produce a repeatable build, and that does protect against a lot of supply-chain attacks when you never change anything, but you generally can't get away with never changing anything forever.
Third, commit hashes are SHA-1, and while it is exceedingly diff
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icult to produce SHA-1 collisions through Git, it isn't impossible and it will only get easier over time. Git already technically has SHA-256 support but it's basically never used in the wild. This needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.
EDIT: The third point may not be as practically pressing as I thought. While SHA-1 is broken and shouldn't be used in new protocols, the techniques to break it faster than brute-force can be detected [1], and GitHub already rejects commits that are flagged by the detector [2]. I still think Git should more aggressively use a better hash, and should also be designed to migrate to new hash algorithms more easily in the future, but at least there are mitigations against attacks.
[1]: https://github.com/cr-marcstevens/sha1collisiondetection
[2]: https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/sha-1-collisi...