The GitHub Action indexnowkit/indexnow-action

A Docker action over ghcr.io/indexnowkit/indexnow:<version>-action: indexnow check --json (the configuration and the key file of the live site — nothing is announced before the engines can verify the key), then indexnow sitemap --json (or submit --json when urls is given), the outputs and a step summary. The source is action/ of this package, mirrored into the repository indexnowkit/indexnow-action (action.yml at its root, as the Marketplace wants); v1 moves within the major, v1.0.2 is pinned.

name: IndexNow
on:
  push: { branches: [main] }          # after the deploy job, when the site is live
jobs:
  indexnow:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/cache@v4         # the state file: what was announced already
        with: { path: .indexnow, key: indexnow-${{ github.ref_name }}-${{ github.run_id }}, restore-keys: indexnow-${{ github.ref_name }}- }
      - uses: indexnowkit/indexnow-action@v1
        with:
          key: ${{ secrets.INDEXNOW_KEY }}
          base-url: https://www.example.com
          sitemap: dist/sitemap.xml     # a file of the checkout, or a URL; default <base-url>/sitemap.xml
          new-only: 'true'

Input	Default
key	required	the IndexNow key; <base-url>/<key>.txt must be served by the site
base-url	required	the site; the host of the key file and of every URL
key-location		the URL of the key file when it is not <base-url>/<key>.txt
engines	api	api (the shared endpoint) or yandex,bing,…
sitemap	<base-url>/sitemap.xml	a URL, or a file in the checkout
urls		one URL per line; then submit runs instead of sitemap
changed-since		only entries with lastmod after this (1 day, 2026-09-01)
new-only	false	only what the state file has not seen with this lastmod; needs the cache above
state-path	.indexnow	the directory of the state file and of summary.json, relative to the workspace unless it is absolute
verify	false	fetch every URL before submitting it (noindex, canonical, redirects, robots.txt are skipped)
dry-run	false	report what would be submitted, send nothing
fail-on-error	true	false: a failed check or submission is a notice, the step stays green

Outputs: submitted, skipped, failed (URL counts), summary-json (a file with the check report and the results). The step summary shows the result table and the check lines.

The step hands that directory to the owner of the workspace before it exits: a Docker action runs as root and the state directory is 0700, so without it actions/cache cannot read what it is supposed to save — the job ends with EACCES: permission denied, scandir '.indexnow' and new-only starts from nothing on the next run.

What sets it apart from the other IndexNow actions: every engine in one run (or a list), the key file checked before anything is sent, new-only over a state file instead of a lastmod window (a sitemap without lastmod still gets each change announced once), the pre-flight, the history in the state file. Inputs arrive as INPUT_<NAME> with the dashes kept (INPUT_BASE-URL), which is why the entrypoint (docker/indexnow-action in the image) is PHP.