🌱 harden git workflows

[PrashantR30]

What type of PR is this?

/kind cleanup

What this PR does / why we need it:

This PR hardens GitHub Actions workflows by aligning them with current GitHub Actions security best practices and similar hardening changes already applied across other Cluster API providers.

The changes include:

• Adding persist-credentials: false to actions/checkout steps where repository write access is not required.
• Ensuring workflows follow the principle of least privilege.

These changes reduce the risk of credential misuse from workflow execution while preserving existing CI/CD functionality.

Which issue(s) this PR fixes (optional, in fixes #<issue number> format):

Fixes #

Special notes for your reviewer:

This PR mirrors workflow hardening changes previously adopted in Cluster API Provider AWS and applies the same security posture to CAPZ workflows.

No functional changes to Cluster API Provider Azure components are expected. The changes are limited to GitHub Actions workflow configuration and credential handling.

TODOs:

• squashed commits
• includes documentation
• adds unit tests
• cherry-pick candidate

Release note:

Harden GitHub Actions workflows by disabling persisted checkout credentials and reducing unnecessary workflow permissions.

[k8s-ci-robot]

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[k8s-ci-robot]

Hi @PrashantR30. Thanks for your PR.

I'm waiting for a kubernetes-sigs member to verify that this patch is reasonable to test. If it is, they should reply with /ok-to-test on its own line. Until that is done, I will not automatically test new commits in this PR, but the usual testing commands by org members will still work.

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[bryan-cox]

/ok-to-test

[bryan-cox]

/lgtm

[k8s-ci-robot]

LGTM label has been added.

Details

Git tree hash: fa8dc36fabf544c28aab0601ff164a823849b1aa

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 43.95%. Comparing base (b10eeb5) to head (f2e0687).
⚠️ Report is 4 commits behind head on main.

Additional details and impacted files

@@           Coverage Diff           @@
##             main    #6331   +/-   ##
=======================================
  Coverage   43.95%   43.95%           
=======================================
  Files         288      288           
  Lines       25285    25285           
=======================================
  Hits        11114    11114           
  Misses      13398    13398           
  Partials      773      773           

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[mboersma]

Thanks for this! I had a couple comments, and also the PR description mentions a couple items that don't seem to be part of this PR:

• "Reducing the exposure of the default GITHUB_TOKEN"
• "Removing unnecessary pull request trigger types"

I assume you've been doing this across other CAPI-related projects (and if so, thanks!) but that they weren't relevant to CAPZ. If so, let's remove them from the PR description.

[mboersma]

/lgtm
/approve

[k8s-ci-robot]

LGTM label has been added.

Details

Git tree hash: 8c3bdfe1ae863115df0b8299386d02afdc14117a

[k8s-ci-robot]

[APPROVALNOTIFIER] This PR is APPROVED

This pull-request has been approved by: mboersma

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• OWNERS [mboersma]

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[mboersma]

/cherry-pick release-1.24

[mboersma]

/cherry-pick release-1.23

[k8s-infra-cherrypick-robot]

@mboersma: new pull request created: #6335

Details

In response to this:

/cherry-pick release-1.24

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[k8s-infra-cherrypick-robot]

@mboersma: new pull request created: #6336

Details

In response to this:

/cherry-pick release-1.23

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