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GET /repos/{owner}/{repo}/actions/runs: bot committer emails fail format: "email" validation #6355

@plengauer

Description

@plengauer

Description

The workflow runs endpoint (GET /repos/{owner}/{repo}/actions/runs) returns commit objects where the committer/author email field is declared with format: "email", but GitHub Actions bot commits use email addresses like:

github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com

The square brackets in github-actions[bot] make this address non-compliant with RFC 5321 (which prohibits [ and ] in the local part of an email address). JSON Schema validators that strictly enforce format: "email" will reject these values.

Error observed

When calling GET /repos/{owner}/{repo}/actions/runs on a repository that has GitHub Actions bot commits, MCP servers and other tools that validate against this schema fail with:

MCP error -32602: Structured content does not match the tool's output schema: 
[commit].committer.email must match format "email"

Examples of non-RFC-compliant bot emails returned by the API

  • github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com
  • 49699333+dependabot[bot]@users.noreply.github.com

The [bot] suffix appended to the username contains square brackets, which are not permitted in the local part of an RFC 5321 email address.

Expected behavior

The schema should either:

  • Relax the format: "email" constraint on committer/author email fields in workflow run commit objects (e.g. use format: "email" only as a hint, or remove it for these fields), or
  • Use a more permissive format that accommodates GitHub's internal bot email convention

Steps to reproduce

  1. Call GET /repos/{owner}/{repo}/actions/runs on any repo that uses GitHub Actions or Dependabot
  2. Inspect the head_commit.committer.email or head_commit.author.email field
  3. Validating against the current schema's format: "email" constraint will fail for bot-authored commits

Notes

  • This affects all endpoints returning workflow run objects with commit data
  • The same issue may affect other endpoints that return commit author/committer objects where bot accounts are involved

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