Capped number of automation actions to 20

[EvanHahn]

closes https://linear.app/ghost/issue/NY-1285

This was written entirely by GPT-5.5 with the following prompt:

Commit 63f353779c408ca781bd66ef9295f1f211c47cc2 added graph editing for automations. But you can pass an unlimited number of actions and edges.

Define a constant (called something like MAX_ACTIONS or MAX_AUTOMATION_ACTIONS), set to 20, that ensures that 20 is the maximum number of automation actions allowed in an edit request. In other words, you shouldn't be able to have more than 20 actions. You may also need to check the number of edges, or you may not—I'm not sure.

Use red/green TDD to verify this. You'll probably need to add one or two tests to ghost/core/test/e2e-api/admin/automations.test.js.

When you're done, create a branch and make the following commit:

Capped number of automation actions to 20

ref https://linear.app/ghost/issue/NY-1285

And then make a PR with the same title and description.

[coderabbitai]

No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 456e1fa and 914a36d.

📒 Files selected for processing (2)

• ghost/core/core/server/services/automations/automations-api.ts
• ghost/core/test/e2e-api/admin/automations.test.js

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Walkthrough

This PR enforces a maximum of 20 automation actions by adding a MAX_AUTOMATION_ACTIONS constant and applying it as an upper bound in the zod validation schema for the actions array. The change includes E2E test coverage that verifies successful updates with exactly 20 actions and rejection of payloads with 21 actions, ensuring the constraint is properly enforced at the API boundary.

Possibly related PRs

• TryGhost/Ghost#27878: Both PRs modify the automations edit payload validation in ghost/core/core/server/services/automations/automations-api.ts—the retrieved PR adds full graph/action/edge edit validation, and this PR extends it with an actions array length cap (20) plus corresponding E2E coverage.

Suggested reviewers

• troyciesco

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly and concisely describes the main change: adding a 20-action limit to automation actions, which matches the core implementation in the changeset.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description is directly related to the changeset, explaining the motivation (closing NY-1285 issue) and the implementation approach (adding a MAX_AUTOMATION_ACTIONS constant and tests).
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

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✨ Finishing Touches

📝 Generate docstrings

• Create stacked PR
• Commit on current branch

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch ny-1285-cap-automation-actions

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