Error: TypeError: Cannot read properties of null (reading 'discussion') about create-discussion

[LCSLITX]

Just to complement the previous answer, I found an alternate solution.

I experienced this same error and I added the following permissions to respective job: discussions: write; contents: read.

  create_discussion:
    needs: [job1]
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    # Added permissions
    permissions:
       discussions: write
       contents: read

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - name: Download all artifacts
      uses: actions/download-artifact@v4

    - name: Create a new GitHub Discussion
      id: create-discussion
      uses: abirismyname/[email protected]
      env:
        GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      with:
        title: 'Title'
        body-filepath: 'path/to/file'
        repository-id: ${{ secrets.REPOSITORY_ID }}
        category-id: ${{ secrets.CATEGORY_ID }}
    - name: Print discussion URL
      run: |
        echo discussion-url: ${{steps.create-discussion.outputs.discussion-url}}

[franzenr]

I'm also experiencing the same problem -- haven't been able to figure out a way around it yet

[mbordash2]

@franzenr what is your specific use case and does it involve cross-repository discussion? As far as I can tell, this is a permissions thing...but I haven't figured out a solution yet.

I am trying to create a new discussion in another repo from where the GHA is running, although within the same organization.

[mbordash2]

@franzenr I was able to get this working and it turned out to be really simple but hard to diagnose due to lack of sufficiently helpful error messages. Ultimately it was the token the GHA was using didn't have permissions to see the repository.

Some things to consider:

• The token must be authorized for the organization if you have SSO enabled. Just creating a token without proper authorization will fail.
• The new fine grained PAT token must be enabled for your organization. I ended up just using the classic token as this wasn't enabled to work properly on my org.

I ultimately created a small python program to test this out directly and was able to get better error messages that helped me out. Below is the code if you'd like to use it to help you diagnose.

def create_github_discussion(repo_id, title, body, category_id, token):
    url = "https://api.github.com/graphql"
    headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {token}"}
    query = """
        mutation($input: CreateDiscussionInput!) {
          createDiscussion(input: $input) {
            discussion {
              id
              url
            }
          }
        }
    """
    variables = {
        "input": {
            "repositoryId": repo_id,
            "title": title,
            "body": body,
            "categoryId": category_id,
            "clientMutationId": "test"
        }
    }
    response = requests.post(url, json={"query": query, "variables": variables}, headers=headers)