Adding automatic rebuild of Repo files

[DRx3D]

Adds an action that rebuilds the each models Metadata, README, License files and the repo-wide model listing directories.

[DRx3D]

@javagl, @emackey : You might want to take a look at the action in the PR. It is the automatic rebuild on PUSH to main that has been discussed for a while.

[emackey]

I hope you don't mind if I ask some sanity-check questions:

• What happens if no changes are made by the action, will it attempt to push an empty commit?
• If this action is triggered by a push to main, and itself also pushes to main, does this form an infinite loop? Or is there a guard against triggering itself already present?
• One of the commented lines mentions the default git push options include --force, this sounds terrifying. Are we sure this is correct?

(Edit: One question deleted after reading more closely.)

[javagl]

I started quickly looking over this - reading and thoroughly understanding it, by matching it with the documentation of the action at https://github.com/EndBug/add-and-commit (and maybe trying it out in a Sandbox) is something else.

But a first pass:

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The settings that are not their defaults are

author_name: Author_Name-Test-GitAction author_email: daly.realism+ActionAuthor@gmail.com committer_name: Committer_Name-Test-GitAction committer_email: daly.realism+ActionCommitter@gmail.com

From skimming over the documentation, it looks like this is not necessary (and you probably don't want all these commits attributed to you). According to https://github.com/EndBug/add-and-commit?tab=readme-ov-file#different-authorcommitter-configurations , it looks like setting the default_author (which is currently empty) could fill out these fields with sensible defaults - i.e. setting

default_author: github_actor

might just attribute all the changes to "github-actions".

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In general: The commented-out settings may be helpful during the first pass, but ... when everything is settled, I think that they should be removed, to reduce the clutter.

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@emackey

If this action is triggered by a push to main, and itself also pushes to main, does this form an infinite loop? Or is there a guard against triggering itself already present?

The FAQ says "The commit from the action is not triggering CI!" at https://github.com/EndBug/add-and-commit?tab=readme-ov-file#the-commit-from-the-action-is-not-triggering-ci (with reasons...)

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One of the commented lines mentions the default git push options include --force, this sounds terrifying. Are we sure this is correct?

This probably refers to

        # For more info as to why fetching is usually recommended, please see the "Performance on large repos" FAQ. 
        # Default: --tags --force
        # _Default appears correct
        #fetch: false

I haven't seen fetch --force either, but it seems like this just enforces overwriting local branches (and with a freshly checked out repo in CI, that shouldn't be a problem).

^{(I could point to the git fetch --force documentation, but ... that whole documentation is the biggest 1f595 ever, and always written in a way that raises more questions than it answers...)}

[emackey]

Thanks @javagl!

[DRx3D]

Updated action to remove most default settings, comments, and the authoring keys indicated by @javagl. Added all repo-generated files to .gitignore to avoid conflicts.