GitHub Action to Sync Tailscale ACLs

This GitHub action lets you manage your tailnet policy file using a GitOps workflow. With this GitHub action you can automatically manage your tailnet policy file using a git repository as your source of truth.

Inputs

tailnet

Required The name of your tailnet. You can find it by opening the admin panel and copying down the name next to the Tailscale logo in the upper left hand corner of the page.

api-key

Optional An API key authorized for your tailnet. You can get one in the admin panel. Either api-key or oauth-client-id and oauth-secret are required.

Please note that API keys will expire in 90 days. Set up a monthly event to rotate your Tailscale API key, or use an OAuth client.

oauth-client-id and oauth-secret

Optional The ID and secret for an OAuth client for your tailnet. The client must have the acl scope.

Either api-key or oauth-client-id and oauth-secret are required.

policy-file

Optional The path to your policy file in the repository. If not set this defaults to policy.hujson in the root of your repository.

action

Required One of test or apply. If you set test, the action will run ACL tests and not update the ACLs in Tailscale. If you set apply, the action will run ACL tests and then update the ACLs in Tailscale. This enables you to use pull requests to make changes with CI stopping you from pushing a bad change out to production.

Getting Started

Set up a new GitHub repository that will contain your tailnet policy file. Open the Access Controls page of the admin console and copy your policy file to a file in that repo called policy.hujson.

If you want to change this name to something else, you will need to add the policy-file argument to the with blocks in your GitHub Actions config.

Copy this file to .github/workflows/tailscale.yml.

name: Sync Tailscale ACLs

on:
  push:
    branches: [ "main" ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ "main" ]

jobs:
  acls:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Fetch version-cache.json
        uses: actions/cache@v4
        with:
          path: ./version-cache.json
          key: version-cache.json-${{ github.run_id }}
          restore-keys: |
            version-cache.json-

      - name: Deploy ACL
        if: github.event_name == 'push'
        id: deploy-acl
        uses: tailscale/gitops-acl-action@v1
        with:
          api-key: ${{ secrets.TS_API_KEY }}
          tailnet: ${{ secrets.TS_TAILNET }}
          action: apply

      - name: Test ACL
        if: github.event_name == 'pull_request'
        id: test-acl
        uses: tailscale/gitops-acl-action@v1
        with:
          api-key: ${{ secrets.TS_API_KEY }}
          tailnet: ${{ secrets.TS_TAILNET }}
          action: test

Generate a new API key here.

Set a monthly calendar reminder to renew this key because Tailscale does not currently support API key renewal (this will be updated to support that when that feature is implemented).

Then open the secrets settings for your repo and add two secrets:

• TS_API_KEY: Your Tailscale API key from the earlier step
• TS_TAILNET: Your tailnet's name (it's next to the logo on the upper left-hand corner of the admin panel)

Once you do that, commit the changes and push them to GitHub. You will have CI automatically test and push changes to your tailnet policy file to Tailscale.

Developer guide

Release process

To create a new minor or patch release:

• push the new tag to the main branch

• create a new GitHub release with a description of the changes in this release

• repush the latest major release tag to point at the new latest release. For example, if you are creating a v1.3.1 release, you want to additionally tag it with v1 tag. This approach follows the official GitHub actions versioning guidelines.