check-typos.yml

Diff-scoped spellcheck of the files spellcheck.yml cannot see – a Quarto site’s non-vignette .qmd pages, CONTRIBUTING.md-class Markdown, docs/, YAML, code comments, and repositories that are not R packages – with crate-ci/typos. typos is a corrections-list checker rather than a dictionary checker, so unknown jargon is not an error and a consumer does not need a curated wordlist the way spellcheck.yml does.

It is a separate capability from spellcheck.yml because the two tools have different vocabularies and config formats, and because this repo is not an R package and can dogfood check-typos. spellcheck.yml remains the right check for an R package’s DESCRIPTION Title/Description, man/*.Rd, vignettes, and root README/NEWS.

Scoped to lines a diff adds, and to filename typos only on paths the PR added or renamed, so a first run over an existing repo does not reflag years of drift – the same adoption problem check-new-line-breaks.yml solves, and the one that matters more here because a whole-tree scan still flags every known misspelling the corpus already carries. Pass base-ref: all to scan the whole tracked tree once you are ready to clean it. When the diff cannot be computed (a push run with no base, a shallow clone), the check is skipped with a warning rather than falling back to a whole-tree scan.

The CLI is installed from a pinned GitHub release rather than wrapping the official crate-ci/typos action, which has no line-level diff filter. Measured against crate-ci/typos v1.49.0 (released 2026-08-03; pin checked 2026-08-26): --format json exits 2 on findings and 0 when clean, and a filename typo has no line_num field. A filename finding is in scope only when the PR added or renamed that path; a content-only edit of a file whose misspelled name already existed is treated as pre-existing drift, same as an untouched file.

Inputs

Input	Type	Default	Description
`version`	string	`'1.49.0'`	crate-ci/typos release version to install (with or without the leading `v`). Bumping this requires bumping `checksums-sha256`.
`checksums-sha256`	string	`'48bd2d58e02ce713b8c0f1aa239e68ee4f7d8c551013135806e6aed3938d9e10'`	Expected SHA-256 of the platform tarball. The default is linux x86_64 musl.
`path`	string	`'.'`	Path to the repository root, relative to the workspace.
`config`	string	`''`	Path (relative to `path`) to a typos config file. Empty lets typos auto-discover `_typos.toml`, `typos.toml`, or `.typos.toml`. A named but missing file is an error.
`globs`	string	`''`	Space-separated git pathspecs of tracked files to check. Empty checks every tracked file typos would consider (recursive by default).
`paths-ignore`	string	`''`	Comma- or newline-separated glob patterns (relative paths) to skip; supports ``, `?`, and recursive `*`.
`base-ref`	string	`''`	Git ref/SHA to diff against. Only added lines, plus filename typos on paths the three-dot diff added or renamed. Empty uses the PR base SHA on `pull_request` runs and skips on push. Pass `all` to scan the whole tracked tree.
`fail`	boolean	`true`	Fail the workflow when a typo is found; otherwise non-blocking.

Permissions

Only contents: read (the default), so no permissions: block is needed.

Example

# Copy to .github/workflows/check-typos.yml in your repo.
# Diff-scoped spellcheck of the files spellcheck.yml cannot see: Quarto site
# pages, CONTRIBUTING.md-class Markdown, docs/, YAML, code comments, and
# repositories that are not R packages. Uses crate-ci/typos, a
# corrections-list checker, so it does not need a curated wordlist.
# Diff-scoped, so it only ever flags what a PR itself adds (added lines,
# plus filename typos on paths the PR added or renamed). A first run
# over an existing repo does not reflag years of drift. Pass base-ref: all
# to scan the whole tree once you are ready to clean it.
# Only contents:read is needed (the default), so no permissions block is required.
name: Check typos

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  pull_request:
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  check:
    uses: Morrison-Lab/gha/.github/workflows/check-typos.yml@v2
    # with:
    #   globs: '*.md *.qmd'                    # pathspecs to check (recursive)
    #   paths-ignore: 'CHANGELOG.md,vendor/*'  # skip known-noisy paths
    #   config: '_typos.toml'                  # explicit config; empty auto-discovers
    #   fail: false                            # warn-only instead of blocking (defaults to true)
    #   base-ref: all                          # whole-tree scan instead of the PR diff

See check-typos.yml in examples/ for the full caller stub. (Linked to the directory rather than the file, for the reason check-secrets.qmd records: a blob/main/... link to a capability’s own example 404s on the pull request that introduces it, and check-links rightly fails it.)

Suppressing false positives

A hit is a known misspelling, not a word missing from a dictionary. Suppress one in a _typos.toml (or typos.toml / .typos.toml) at the repository root – see crate-ci/typos – or skip the path with paths-ignore.