Claude Code Base Action

This GitHub Action allows you to run Claude Code within your GitHub Actions workflows. You can use this to build any custom workflow on top of Claude Code.

For simply tagging @claude in issues and PRs out of the box, check out the Claude Code action and GitHub app.

Usage

Add the following to your workflow file:

# Using a direct prompt
- name: Run Claude Code with direct prompt
  uses: anthropics/claude-code-base-action@beta
  with:
    prompt: "Your prompt here"
    allowed_tools: "Bash(git:*),View,GlobTool,GrepTool,BatchTool"
    anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}

# Or using a prompt from a file
- name: Run Claude Code with prompt file
  uses: anthropics/claude-code-base-action@beta
  with:
    prompt_file: "/path/to/prompt.txt"
    allowed_tools: "Bash(git:*),View,GlobTool,GrepTool,BatchTool"
    anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}

# Or limiting the conversation turns
- name: Run Claude Code with limited turns
  uses: anthropics/claude-code-base-action@beta
  with:
    prompt: "Your prompt here"
    allowed_tools: "Bash(git:*),View,GlobTool,GrepTool,BatchTool"
    max_turns: "5" # Limit conversation to 5 turns
    anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}

# Using custom system prompts
- name: Run Claude Code with custom system prompt
  uses: anthropics/claude-code-base-action@beta
  with:
    prompt: "Build a REST API"
    system_prompt: "You are a senior backend engineer. Focus on security, performance, and maintainability."
    allowed_tools: "Bash(git:*),View,GlobTool,GrepTool,BatchTool"
    anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}

# Or appending to the default system prompt
- name: Run Claude Code with appended system prompt
  uses: anthropics/claude-code-base-action@beta
  with:
    prompt: "Create a database schema"
    append_system_prompt: "After writing code, be sure to code review yourself."
    allowed_tools: "Bash(git:*),View,GlobTool,GrepTool,BatchTool"
    anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}

# Using custom environment variables
- name: Run Claude Code with custom environment variables
  uses: anthropics/claude-code-base-action@beta
  with:
    prompt: "Deploy to staging environment"
    claude_env: |
      ENVIRONMENT: staging
      API_URL: https://api-staging.example.com
      DEBUG: true
    allowed_tools: "Bash(git:*),View,GlobTool,GrepTool,BatchTool"
    anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}

Inputs

Input	Description	Required	Default
prompt	The prompt to send to Claude Code	No*	''
prompt_file	Path to a file containing the prompt to send to Claude Code	No*	''
allowed_tools	Comma-separated list of allowed tools for Claude Code to use	No	''
disallowed_tools	Comma-separated list of disallowed tools that Claude Code cannot use	No	''
max_turns	Maximum number of conversation turns (default: no limit)	No	''
mcp_config	Path to the MCP configuration JSON file	No	''
system_prompt	Override system prompt	No	''
append_system_prompt	Append to system prompt	No	''
claude_env	Custom environment variables to pass to Claude Code execution (YAML multiline format)	No	''
model	Model to use (provider-specific format required for Bedrock/Vertex)	No	'claude-4-0-sonnet-20250219'
anthropic_model	DEPRECATED: Use 'model' instead	No	'claude-4-0-sonnet-20250219'
timeout_minutes	Timeout in minutes for Claude Code execution	No	'10'
anthropic_api_key	Anthropic API key (required for direct Anthropic API)	No	''
use_bedrock	Use Amazon Bedrock with OIDC authentication instead of direct Anthropic API	No	'false'
use_vertex	Use Google Vertex AI with OIDC authentication instead of direct Anthropic API	No	'false'
use_node_cache	Whether to use Node.js dependency caching (set to true only for Node.js projects with lock files)	No	'false'

*Either prompt or prompt_file must be provided, but not both.

Outputs

Output	Description
conclusion	Execution status of Claude Code ('success' or 'failure')
execution_file	Path to the JSON file containing Claude Code execution log

Environment Variables

The following environment variables can be used to configure the action:

Variable	Description	Default
NODE_VERSION	Node.js version to use (e.g., '18.x', '20.x', '22.x')	'18.x'

Example usage:

- name: Run Claude Code with Node.js 20
  uses: anthropics/claude-code-base-action@beta
  env:
    NODE_VERSION: "20.x"
  with:
    prompt: "Your prompt here"
    anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}

Custom Environment Variables

You can pass custom environment variables to Claude Code execution using the claude_env input. This allows Claude to access environment-specific configuration during its execution.

The claude_env input accepts YAML multiline format with key-value pairs:

- name: Deploy with custom environment
  uses: anthropics/claude-code-base-action@beta
  with:
    prompt: "Deploy the application to the staging environment"
    claude_env: |
      ENVIRONMENT: staging
      API_BASE_URL: https://api-staging.example.com
      DATABASE_URL: ${{ secrets.STAGING_DB_URL }}
      DEBUG: true
      LOG_LEVEL: debug
    allowed_tools: "Bash(git:*),View,GlobTool,GrepTool,BatchTool"
    anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}

Features:

• YAML Format: Use standard YAML key-value syntax (KEY: value)
• Multiline Support: Define multiple environment variables in a single input
• Comments: Lines starting with # are ignored
• GitHub Secrets: Can reference GitHub secrets using ${{ secrets.SECRET_NAME }}
• Runtime Access: Environment variables are available to Claude during execution

Example Use Cases:

# Development configuration
claude_env: |
  NODE_ENV: development
  API_URL: http://localhost:3000
  DEBUG: true

# Production deployment
claude_env: |
  NODE_ENV: production
  API_URL: https://api.example.com
  DATABASE_URL: ${{ secrets.PROD_DB_URL }}
  REDIS_URL: ${{ secrets.REDIS_URL }}

# Feature flags and configuration
claude_env: |
  FEATURE_NEW_UI: enabled
  MAX_RETRIES: 3
  TIMEOUT_MS: 5000

Using MCP Config

You can provide a custom MCP configuration file to dynamically load MCP servers:

- name: Run Claude Code with MCP config
  uses: anthropics/claude-code-base-action@beta
  with:
    prompt: "Your prompt here"
    mcp_config: "path/to/mcp-config.json"
    allowed_tools: "Bash(git:*),View,GlobTool,GrepTool,BatchTool"
    anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}

The MCP config file should follow this format:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "server-name": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["./server.js"],
      "env": {
        "API_KEY": "your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

You can combine MCP config with other inputs like allowed tools:

# Using multiple inputs together
- name: Run Claude Code with MCP and custom tools
  uses: anthropics/claude-code-base-action@beta
  with:
    prompt: "Access the custom MCP server and use its tools"
    mcp_config: "mcp-config.json"
    allowed_tools: "Bash(git:*),View,mcp__server-name__custom_tool"
    timeout_minutes: "15"
    anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}

Example: PR Code Review

name: Claude Code Review

on:
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize]

jobs:
  code-review:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0

      - name: Run Code Review with Claude
        id: code-review
        uses: anthropics/claude-code-base-action@beta
        with:
          prompt: "Review the PR changes. Focus on code quality, potential bugs, and performance issues. Suggest improvements where appropriate. Write your review as markdown text."
          allowed_tools: "Bash(git diff --name-only HEAD~1),Bash(git diff HEAD~1),View,GlobTool,GrepTool,Write"
          anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}

      - name: Extract and Comment PR Review
        if: steps.code-review.outputs.conclusion == 'success'
        uses: actions/github-script@v7
        with:
          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          script: |
            const fs = require('fs');
            const executionFile = '${{ steps.code-review.outputs.execution_file }}';
            const executionLog = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync(executionFile, 'utf8'));

            // Extract the review content from the execution log
            // The execution log contains the full conversation including Claude's responses
            let review = '';

            // Find the last assistant message which should contain the review
            for (let i = executionLog.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
              if (executionLog[i].role === 'assistant') {
                review = executionLog[i].content;
                break;
              }
            }

            if (review) {
              github.rest.issues.createComment({
                issue_number: context.issue.number,
                owner: context.repo.owner,
                repo: context.repo.repo,
                body: "## Claude Code Review\n\n" + review + "\n\n*Generated by Claude Code*"
              });
            }

Check out additional examples in ./examples.

Using Cloud Providers

You can authenticate with Claude using any of these three methods:

1. Direct Anthropic API (default) - requires API key
2. Amazon Bedrock - requires OIDC authentication and automatically uses cross-region inference profiles
3. Google Vertex AI - requires OIDC authentication

Note:

• Bedrock and Vertex use OIDC authentication exclusively
• AWS Bedrock automatically uses cross-region inference profiles for certain models
• For cross-region inference profile models, you need to request and be granted access to the Claude models in all regions that the inference profile uses
• The Bedrock API endpoint URL is automatically constructed using the AWS_REGION environment variable (e.g., https://bedrock-runtime.us-west-2.amazonaws.com)
• You can override the Bedrock API endpoint URL by setting the ANTHROPIC_BEDROCK_BASE_URL environment variable

Model Configuration

Use provider-specific model names based on your chosen provider:

# For direct Anthropic API (default)
- name: Run Claude Code with Anthropic API
  uses: anthropics/claude-code-base-action@beta
  with:
    prompt: "Your prompt here"
    model: "claude-3-7-sonnet-20250219"
    anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}

# For Amazon Bedrock (requires OIDC authentication)
- name: Configure AWS Credentials (OIDC)
  uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v4
  with:
    role-to-assume: ${{ secrets.AWS_ROLE_TO_ASSUME }}
    aws-region: us-west-2

- name: Run Claude Code with Bedrock
  uses: anthropics/claude-code-base-action@beta
  with:
    prompt: "Your prompt here"
    model: "anthropic.claude-3-7-sonnet-20250219-v1:0"
    use_bedrock: "true"

# For Google Vertex AI (requires OIDC authentication)
- name: Authenticate to Google Cloud
  uses: google-github-actions/auth@v2
  with:
    workload_identity_provider: ${{ secrets.GCP_WORKLOAD_IDENTITY_PROVIDER }}
    service_account: ${{ secrets.GCP_SERVICE_ACCOUNT }}

- name: Run Claude Code with Vertex AI
  uses: anthropics/claude-code-base-action@beta
  with:
    prompt: "Your prompt here"
    model: "claude-3-7-sonnet@20250219"
    use_vertex: "true"

Example: Using OIDC Authentication for AWS Bedrock

This example shows how to use OIDC authentication with AWS Bedrock:

- name: Configure AWS Credentials (OIDC)
  uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v4
  with:
    role-to-assume: ${{ secrets.AWS_ROLE_TO_ASSUME }}
    aws-region: us-west-2

- name: Run Claude Code with AWS OIDC
  uses: anthropics/claude-code-base-action@beta
  with:
    prompt: "Your prompt here"
    use_bedrock: "true"
    model: "anthropic.claude-3-7-sonnet-20250219-v1:0"
    allowed_tools: "Bash(git:*),View,GlobTool,GrepTool,BatchTool"

Example: Using OIDC Authentication for GCP Vertex AI

This example shows how to use OIDC authentication with GCP Vertex AI:

- name: Authenticate to Google Cloud
  uses: google-github-actions/auth@v2
  with:
    workload_identity_provider: ${{ secrets.GCP_WORKLOAD_IDENTITY_PROVIDER }}
    service_account: ${{ secrets.GCP_SERVICE_ACCOUNT }}

- name: Run Claude Code with GCP OIDC
  uses: anthropics/claude-code-base-action@beta
  with:
    prompt: "Your prompt here"
    use_vertex: "true"
    model: "claude-3-7-sonnet@20250219"
    allowed_tools: "Bash(git:*),View,GlobTool,GrepTool,BatchTool"

Security Best Practices

⚠️ IMPORTANT: Never commit API keys directly to your repository! Always use GitHub Actions secrets.

To securely use your Anthropic API key:

1. Add your API key as a repository secret:

   • Go to your repository's Settings
   • Navigate to "Secrets and variables" → "Actions"
   • Click "New repository secret"
   • Name it ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
   • Paste your API key as the value

2. Reference the secret in your workflow:

   anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}

Never do this:

# ❌ WRONG - Exposes your API key
anthropic_api_key: "sk-ant-..."

Always do this:

# ✅ CORRECT - Uses GitHub secrets
anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}

This applies to all sensitive values including API keys, access tokens, and credentials. We also recommend that you always use short-lived tokens when possible

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License—see the LICENSE file for details.