How to resolve "refusing to allow an integration to create or update .github/workflows/main.yml" on GitHub Desktop?

This post was most recently updated on November 12th, 2019.

< 1 min read.

Ran into this one when trying to push my merge from upstream. I was adhering to my own instructions (see below for a link), but got the error (further below) that stopped me from using GitHub Desktop to push (sync) at all.

Note to self: How to sync from the original repo on GitHub (Git merge upstream)

So, the error I ran into:

! [remote rejected] master -> master (refusing to allow an integration to create or update .github/workflows/main.yml)
error: failed to push some refs to [repositoryname]

This was take weird – I hadn’t made any changes to said file, and I don’t think anyone else had, either.

This is likely an unintended feature of GitHub, and GitHub Desktop can’t do anything about it. However, there’s a nifty workaround available!

Solution

Table of Contents

A number of GitHub issues propose that this issue can be circumvented by actually committing a change removing the yaml file in question from the repository. However, if you’re merging from an upstream repository, you don’t usually want to do this! So we need to find another way.

Whereas GitHub Desktop is using OAuth, and running into this issue, Git Bash (the console application you use to merge upstream in my earlier example as well) doesn’t. And it’s also free from this issue, as it’s not considered “an integration”, and whatever it’s trying to do (or not do) to the yaml file just works.

So, in short – instead of using GitHub Desktop, open Git bash and run this:

cd [yourprojectpath] # after this, make sure the command line shows the right branch name!
git push

Et voila! You should be good.

References

Author

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Antti K. Koskela

Developer / Speaker / Consultant at Koskila / Precio Fishbone / Norppandalotti Software Co / Alter - Experience Ideas Ltd

Antti Koskela is a proud digital native nomadic millennial full stack developer (is that enough funny buzzwords? That's definitely enough funny buzzwords!), who works as Solutions Architect for Precio Fishbone, building delightful Digital Workplaces.

He's been a developer from 2004 (starting with PHP and Java), and he's been working on .NET projects, Azure, Office 365, SharePoint and a lot of other stuff. He's also Microsoft MVP for Office Development.

This is his personal professional (e.g. professional, but definitely personal) blog.

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