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🧪 Commit CLI — For Push-Based Workflows

The Early Commit CLI brings AI-powered unit test generation to pipelines triggered by code commits rather than pull requests.
It’s perfect for environments that don’t operate on PR metadata — like Jenkins or GitHub Actions with on: push.

📌 When to Use​

Use the Commit CLI agent when:

  • You use push-based CI triggers (e.g., on: push)
  • Your workflow runs without pull request context
  • You use Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or custom CI/CD tools
  • You want to continuously generate tests for new commits

⚙️ How It Works​

  1. You provide:
    • The current commit SHA
    • The branch name (e.g., main)
    • A valid API_KEY
    • A TOKEN for GitHub or another SCM
  2. The CLI scans the changed files in the commit.
  3. It finds low-covered functions and generates tests.
  4. If AUTO_COMMIT=true, the files are committed automatically.

🔐 Requirements​

Before using this agent:

  • ✅ Install the CLI → NPM Authentication →
  • ✅ Set these required environment variables:
    • API_KEY — Your Early-provided secret
    • TOKEN — SCM token with access to repo (GitHub PAT, Bitbucket App PW) → Token Permissions →
    • REF_NAME — The name of the branch (e.g., main)
    • COMMIT_HASH — The commit SHA to analyze
  • ✅ Configure NODE_OPTIONS to avoid memory issues → Memory Tuning →
  • ✅ For GitHub Packages, configure .npmrc properly → NPM Authentication →

🧪 First Integration Step​

A GitHub Actions example:

name: early-catch

permissions:
  contents: write
  packages: read

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  run-tests:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0

      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: 'npm'

      - run: |
          echo "@earlyai:registry=https://npm.pkg.github.com" >> ~/.npmrc
          echo "//npm.pkg.github.com/:_authToken=${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}" >> ~/.npmrc

      - run: npm install -g @earlyai/cli

      - name: Generate tests
        env:
          API_KEY: ${{ secrets.EARLY_SECRET_TOKEN }}
          TOKEN: ${{ secrets.REPO_TOKEN }}
          REF_NAME: ${{ github.ref_name }}
          COMMIT_HASH: ${{ github.sha }}
          NODE_OPTIONS: --max-old-space-size=5120
        run: early generate-commit

⏭️ What’s Next?​