A Github Action for linting C/C++ code integrating clang-tidy and clang-format to collect feedback provided in the form of file-annotations, thread-comments, workflow step-summary, and Pull Request reviews (with tidy-review or format-review).

Usage

Create a new GitHub Actions workflow in your project, e.g. at .github/workflows/cpp-linter.yml

The content of the file should be in the following format.

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v5
      - uses: cpp-linter/cpp-linter-action@v2
        id: linter
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        with:
          style: 'file'  # Use .clang-format config file
          tidy-checks: '' # Use .clang-tidy config file
          # only 'update' a single comment in a pull request thread.
          thread-comments: ${{ github.event_name == 'pull_request' && 'update' }}
      - name: Fail fast?!
        if: steps.linter.outputs.checks-failed > 0
        run: exit 1

For all explanations of our available input parameters and output variables, see our Inputs and Outputs document.

See also our example recipes.

Used By

Microsoft   Apache   NASA   Samsung   TheAlgorithms   CachyOS  
Nextcloud   Jupyter   NNStreamer   imgproxy   Zondax   AppNeta  
Chocolate Doom and many more.

Example

Annotations

Using file-annotations:

clang-format annotations

clang-tidy annotations

Thread Comment

Using thread-comments:

Step Summary

Using step-summary:

Pull Request Review

Only clang-tidy

Using tidy-review:

Only clang-format

Using format-review:

Add C/C++ Linter Action badge in README

You can show C/C++ Linter Action status with a badge in your repository README

Example

[![cpp-linter](https://github.com/cpp-linter/cpp-linter-action/actions/workflows/cpp-linter.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/cpp-linter/cpp-linter-action/actions/workflows/cpp-linter.yml)

Have question or feedback?

To provide feedback (requesting a feature or reporting a bug) please post to issues.

Required tools installed

As of v2.16.0, this action uses

• nushell for cross-platform compatible scripting
• uv for driving a Python virtual environment

This action installs nushell and uv automatically. Only nushell is added to the PATH environment variable. uv, and any standalone Python distribution it downloads, are not added to the PATH environment variable.

On Linux runners

We only support Linux runners using a Debian-based Linux OS (like Ubuntu and many others). This is because we first try to use the apt package manager to install clang tools.

Linux workflows that use a specific container should ensure that the following are installed:

• GLIBC (v2.32 or later)
• wget or curl
• lsb-release (required by LLVM-provided install script)
• software-properties-common (required by LLVM-provided install script)
• gnupg (required by LLVM-provided install script)

apt-get update
apt-get install -y libc6 wget lsb-release software-properties-common gnupg

Otherwise, nushell and/or the LLVM-provided bash script will fail to run.

If installing clang tools fails using the apt package manager, then we alternatively try the following sources in order:

1. PyPI Packages clang-tidy and/or clang-format
2. Static binaries that we built ourselves; see cpp-linter/clang-tools-pip project for more detail.

On macOS runners

The specified version of clang-format and clang-tidy is installed via the following sources in order (whichever succeeds first):

1. Homebrew
2. PyPI Packages clang-tidy and/or clang-format
3. Static binaries that we built ourselves; see cpp-linter/clang-tools-pip project for more detail.

On Windows runners

For Windows runners, we use clang tools installed via the following sources in order (whichever succeeds first):

1. PyPI Packages clang-tidy and/or clang-format
2. Static binaries that we built ourselves; see cpp-linter/clang-tools-pip project for more detail.

License

The scripts and documentation in this project are released under the MIT License