Issue with Expiration of GitHub Actions Run Data in SLSA Provenances

[behnazh-w]

SLSA attestations provide a mechanism to verifiably link an artifact to a GitHub Actions run that has triggered the build and release. There are three main ways to generate such attestations, and all of them include the run ID of the triggering Action:

• npm provenance
• GitHub artifact attestation
• SLSA GitHub provenance generator

This enables the user to go back to the triggering Action using either of

• https://github.com/<org>/<repo>/actions/runs/<run ID>
• https://api.github.com/repos/<org>/<repo>/actions/runs/<run ID>

Unfortunately, the GitHub Actions data is removed after 410 days. For example, the GitHub Actions run URL in this npm provenance is no longer accessible. This poses a significant limitation for all SLSA provenances generated by the methods mentioned above when artifacts are older than 410 days, and it does not align with the goal of maintaining verifiable provenances.

[github-actions[bot]]

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[Steve-Glass]

👋 @behnazh-w Thank you for reaching out! I'm with the Actions product team and hear you loud and clear. This is something I've also been looking at with the upcoming release of Immutable Actions. I know this may seem like a simple fix just update the limit but there are other areas of Actions and GitHub that this limit has an affect on. I've added backlog label as this is something we are tracking at the team level. I do not have a date but will report back in the next month or so with an update on progress.

[monperrus]

@Steve-Glass great to hear about this progress and super excited by immutable actions, very relevant for our Chains project