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Act: Run your GitHub Actions locally

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Re: Act: Run your GitHub Actions locally

#61

Post by pydry »

mikepurvis wrote: post #60
Arnavion wrote: post #33

Rather than replacing your Makefile with GH Actions, replace your GH Actions with a Makefile, and make your GH Actions run `make` in a script task. Do you really need that GH Action for pulling Docker images / installing $language_compiler / creating cloud resources ? A `docker` / `curl` / `sudo apt-get install` invocation in a Makefile / script needs to be written once and is the same in CI as on your dev machines.…

I’ve run into this with overly complicated Jenkins pipeline files as well. I think the root cause is just that a single entry point pipeline is boring— everyone wants a CI config that sets statuses and posts results and does things in parallel and interacts with plugins, and every one of those steps is something that is at least semi unique to the CI execution environment. I think the method you describe is still abs…

>every one of those steps is something that is at least semi unique to the CI execution environment.

Apart from triggers and environment set up none of those things have to be unique.

I often push complex CI logic in YAML into code where it is more easily debugged and I dont have to scratch my head to figure out how to use conditionals. Sending slack messages should always be in code IMHO.

Re: Act: Run your GitHub Actions locally

#63

Post by jaxn »

ilammy wrote: post #49
Arnavion wrote: post #33

Rather than replacing your Makefile with GH Actions, replace your GH Actions with a Makefile, and make your GH Actions run `make` in a script task. Do you really need that GH Action for pulling Docker images / installing $language_compiler / creating cloud resources ? A `docker` / `curl` / `sudo apt-get install` invocation in a Makefile / script needs to be written once and is the same in CI as on your dev machines.…

This is a lesson that I've learned after going all-out on actions once. Now my makefiles in addition to the usual "make" and "make test" also support "make prerequisites" to prepare a build environment by installing everything necessary and "make ci" to run everything that CI should check. With actual implementation being scripts placed under "scripts/ci". The scripts do provide some goodies when they are run by GitH…

What about caching to reduce ci time? GH setup scripts cache dependencies in a way that would seem hard to replicate in a make file.

Re: Act: Run your GitHub Actions locally

#64

Post by makapuf »

jaxn wrote: post #63
ilammy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a lesson that I've learned after going all-out on actions once. Now my makefiles in addition to the usual "make" and "make test" also support "make prerequisites" to prepare a build environment by installing everything necessary and "make ci" to run everything that CI should check. With actual implementation being scripts placed under "scripts/ci". The scripts do provide some goodies when they are run by GitH…

What about caching to reduce ci time? GH setup scripts cache dependencies in a way that would seem hard to replicate in a make file.

You can split your make file in two CI steps, one cached, and the other one depending on it.

Re: Act: Run your GitHub Actions locally

#65

Post by jaxn »

tjpnz wrote: post #20
benrutter wrote: post #12

Finally! I've been wanting something like this for ages- generally speaking I don't consider myself an idiot, but I'm forced to pull that into questioning every time I test and debug ci/cd actions with an endless stream of pull request modifications

I normally create a draft PR first to test CI/CD changes and open a new one when it's working. The workflow still sucks but I at least look like less of an idiot in the eyes of my peers.

Once I even had to hard fork our entire monorepo to refactor the release actions that tag main.

Re: Act: Run your GitHub Actions locally

#66

Post by ilammy »

jaxn wrote: post #63
ilammy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a lesson that I've learned after going all-out on actions once. Now my makefiles in addition to the usual "make" and "make test" also support "make prerequisites" to prepare a build environment by installing everything necessary and "make ci" to run everything that CI should check. With actual implementation being scripts placed under "scripts/ci". The scripts do provide some goodies when they are run by GitH…

What about caching to reduce ci time? GH setup scripts cache dependencies in a way that would seem hard to replicate in a make file.

If it’s manageable – just don’t. Build from scratch. Make sure your build works from scratch and completes in acceptable timeframe. If it’s painful, treat the root cause and not the symptoms.

If it’s unbearable due to circumstances out of your control, there’s nothing wrong with adding some actions/cache steps to .github/workflows – this goes around the build: fetch previous cache before, update the cache after if needed.

The build is still reproducible outside of GitHub Actions, but a pinch of magic salt makes it go faster sometimes without being an essential part of the build pipeline married to GitHub.

If you need to install a whole host of mostly static dependencies, GitHub Actions support running steps in arbitrary Docker container. Prepare an image beforehand, it can be cached too, now you have a predictable environment. (The only downside is that it doesn’t work on macOS and Windows.)

Re: Act: Run your GitHub Actions locally

#67

Post by fgeiger »

tjpnz wrote: post #20
benrutter wrote: post #12

Finally! I've been wanting something like this for ages- generally speaking I don't consider myself an idiot, but I'm forced to pull that into questioning every time I test and debug ci/cd actions with an endless stream of pull request modifications

I normally create a draft PR first to test CI/CD changes and open a new one when it's working. The workflow still sucks but I at least look like less of an idiot in the eyes of my peers.

I got you covered: I try out changes to CI tasks in a clone of the repository. Nobody needs to be bothered by my commits in the actual repository.

Re: Act: Run your GitHub Actions locally

#68

Post by silverwind »

Arnavion wrote: post #33

Rather than replacing your Makefile with GH Actions, replace your GH Actions with a Makefile, and make your GH Actions run `make` in a script task. Do you really need that GH Action for pulling Docker images / installing $language_compiler / creating cloud resources ? A `docker` / `curl` / `sudo apt-get install` invocation in a Makefile / script needs to be written once and is the same in CI as on your dev machines.…

This. All my action files are just a `make test` call which installs dependencies on-demand and most importantly, makes the process reproducible locally which is invaluable to debug.

Re: Act: Run your GitHub Actions locally

#70

Post by andrewallbright »

vacillator wrote: post #69

My solution to testing GitHub actions is pretty straightforward - I've created a private repository where I push and test my actions first. Then when I'm satisfied, I go ahead and create a PR on the main repository I want the action to be in.

Good tip -- engineers are like Jurassic Park because they always find a way.

Will you evaluate this tool to see if it affords a nicer workflow for you?

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