Create a reference API gives a 422 Reference update failed error

[nZeus]

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We have an action in our workflow that tries to create a git tag.
It uses GitHub API for this, but unfortunately it fails with non-human-readable error Reference update failed error.
Here is the log of that action:

RequestError [HttpError]: Reference update failed
    at /home/runner/work/_actions/actions/github-script/v7/dist/index.js:9537:21
Error: Unhandled error: HttpError: Reference update failed
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:95:5) {
  status: 422,
  response: {
    url: 'https://api.github.com/repos/ORG_NAME/REPO_NAME/git/refs',
    status: 422,
    headers: {
      'access-control-allow-origin': '*',
      'access-control-expose-headers': 'ETag, Link, Location, Retry-After, X-GitHub-OTP, X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Used, X-RateLimit-Resource, X-RateLimit-Reset, X-OAuth-Scopes, X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes, X-Poll-Interval, X-GitHub-Media-Type, X-GitHub-SSO, X-GitHub-Request-Id, Deprecation, Sunset',
      'content-length': '116',
      'content-security-policy': "default-src 'none'",
      'content-type': 'application/json; charset=utf-8',
      date: 'Tue, 12 Dec 2023 14:15:41 GMT',
      'referrer-policy': 'origin-when-cross-origin, strict-origin-when-cross-origin',
      server: 'GitHub.com',
      'strict-transport-security': 'max-age=31536000; includeSubdomains; preload',
      vary: 'Accept-Encoding, Accept, X-Requested-With',
      'x-accepted-github-permissions': 'contents=write; contents=write,workflows=write',
      'x-content-type-options': 'nosniff',
      'x-frame-options': 'deny',
      'x-github-api-version-selected': '2022-11-28',
      'x-github-media-type': 'github.v3; format=json',
      'x-github-request-id': '54C1:104E:10BEBC:22A58C:65786B0D',
      'x-ratelimit-limit': '1000',
      'x-ratelimit-remaining': '987',
      'x-ratelimit-reset': '1702392964',
      'x-ratelimit-resource': 'core',
      'x-ratelimit-used': '13',
      'x-xss-protection': '0'
    },
    data: {
      message: 'Reference update failed',
      documentation_url: 'https://docs.github.com/rest/git/refs#create-a-reference'
    }
  },
  request: {
    method: 'POST',
    url: 'https://api.github.com/repos/ORG_NAME/REPO_NAME/git/refs',
    headers: {
      accept: 'application/vnd.github.v3+json',
      'user-agent': 'actions/github-script octokit-core.js/5.0.1 Node.js/20.8.1 (linux; x64)',
      authorization: 'token [REDACTED]',
      'content-type': 'application/json; charset=utf-8'
    },
    body: '{"ref":"refs/tags/v3.0.0-rc.1145","sha":"e6dfcdeb7f7e613f0ee5217e75d140d31b3cf8c4"}',
    request: {
      agent: [Agent],
      fetch: [Function: proxyFetch],
      hook: [Function: bound bound register]
    }
  }
}

It doesn't explain why it failed to update the ref, and the documentation doesn't say either.
We temporary gave permissions: write-all to our workflow, plus we temporary enabled this setting:

I don't really think this is a permissions issue (otherwise we would get 401/403/404 back).

But what can it be then? Can someone help please?

Kind regards,
Ilia

[nZeus]

We just identified the root cause for the issue, which unfortunately was not obvious.
That happened because of the Tag protection rule:

We would appreciate if the error message could better indicate the root cause 🙏

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[nZeus]

I guess nobody cares?

[tysonnero-ccm]

@nZeus Facing the same issue. 422 response with no details. B/c of the lack of details, debugging this is difficult.