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The Pain That Is GitHub Actions

feldera.com

21–30 of 584 posts

Re: The Pain That Is GitHub Actions

#21
Whenever I get mad at GitHub Actions, I refer to it by it's true name: VisualSourceSafe Actions. Because that's what it is, and it shows. If you check out their Action Runner's source code[1], you'll find the VSS prefix all over, showing it's lineage.

[1] https://github.com/actions/runner/blob/6654f6b3ded8463331fb0...

Re: The Pain That Is GitHub Actions

#22
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not a skill issue if you read the details in their post - https://www.feldera.com/blog/the-pain-that-is-github-actions - they're clearly very experienced with using GitHub Actions and have run into legitimate challenges due to the complexity of what they're using it for.

I did read the post. The documentation of the product does explain how to use it, so it is unfair to blame the product in my opinion.

GitHub Actions may cover this stuff in the documentation but it's still difficult to use. That means the product could be designed better (and the documentation could be easier to follow.)

Re: The Pain That Is GitHub Actions

#23
One thing I found useful was writing a runner for giteas actions CI which is similar to GHA. When you dig down and ask "what is ACTUALLY happening to run this job" then a lot of things such as the docker entrypoint not being modifiable make perfect sense.

Re: The Pain That Is GitHub Actions

#27
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did read the post. The documentation of the product does explain how to use it, so it is unfair to blame the product in my opinion.

GitHub Actions may cover this stuff in the documentation but it's still difficult to use. That means the product could be designed better (and the documentation could be easier to follow.)

Why downvote me because there is discourse?

Could we not usually say most software could be documented better. I do not think GitHub Actions ranks near the bottom in terms of documentation and user experience overall. I do understand your point though.

Re: The Pain That Is GitHub Actions

#28

I worked at companies using Gitlab for a decade, and got familiar with runners. Recently switched to a company using Github, and assumed I'd be blown away by their offering because of their size. Well, I was, but not in the way I'd hoped. They're absolutely awful in comparison, and I'm beyond confused how it got to that state. If I were running a company and had to choose between the two, I'd pick Gitlab every time j…

Glad I’m not the only one. GitLab runners just make sense to me. A container you run scripts in.

I have some GitHub actions for some side projects and it just seems so much more confusing to setup for some reason.

Re: The Pain That Is GitHub Actions

#29
Usually if you’re using it, it’s because you’re forced to.

In my experience, the best strategy is to minimize your use of it — call out to binaries or shell scripts and minimize your dependence on any of the GHA world. Makes it easier to test locally too.

Re: The Pain That Is GitHub Actions

#30
We recently had a developer -- while trying to debug container builds for a version upgrade for a PR on their local branch -- accidentally trigger a deployment of their local branch's docker container to production (!) while messing around with Github action workflow files in their pull request (not main).

Outside of locking down edit access to the .github workflow yml files I'm not sure how vulnerabilities like this can be prevented.

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