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Vinod Sai
Vinod Sai

Reputation: 2122

Reusable workflows with local actions

Reusable workflows with local actions are not working. Reusable workflow is trying to locate the local action in the main repo

Created sample repositories to reproduce the issue

  1. Repo with reusable workflows and local action - https://github.com/vinodsai-a/github-reusable-workflow-sample
  2. Sample repo which uses above reusable workflows - https://github.com/vinodsai-a/github-example-repo

This is the PR link -> https://github.com/vinodsai-a/github-example-repo/pull/1

Error -> https://github.com/vinodsai-a/github-example-repo/pull/1/checks

enter image description here

Upvotes: 18

Views: 23046

Answers (6)

Laxmikant Mahamuni
Laxmikant Mahamuni

Reputation: 121

I support the answer by [https://stackoverflow.com/users/8496462/guifalourd] and it needs

But, the particular error message "Did you forget to run actions/checkout before running your local action?" can be caused by below reason as well, if you are calling a local action in your own repository.

If You are not specifying correct path till the folder in which your action is written.

For example:

./ <THIS_IS_YOUR_PROJECT_ROOT_DIR>

./.github/actions/upload-to-jfrog/action.yml

It needs the exact folder path till that action.yml file

Upvotes: 0

GuiFalourd
GuiFalourd

Reputation: 22890

The issue here is that you can't call a local action on a repository without using the actions/checkout action to access the files in the repository.

on: [workflow_call]

jobs:
  local-action-testing:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/[email protected] # Necessary to access local action
      - uses: ./actions/local-action

I've got some proofs of concept here if you want to take a look:

Upvotes: 10

hanz_kay
hanz_kay

Reputation: 141

Update: you can use below workaround on github.com and GHE Server v3.9+ without the input 'workflows-ref' and instead use github.workflow_ref (doc) or the env-var GITHUB_WORKFLOW_REF (doc). thanks @Philip Couling

There is a workaround, it comes however with the downside of needing to specify the ref for the reusable workflow twice, like this:

jobs:
  build-push:
    uses: <org>/<central-workflow-repo>/.github/workflows/[email protected] # always change with.workflows-ref, too
    with:
      workflows-ref: v1.2
    secrets:
      # can't use GITHUB_TOKEN as its different repo
      GH_ACCESSTOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_ACCESSTOKEN }}

The repo of your reusable workflow has this structure:

<org>/<central-workflow-repo>/ (github repo)
├─ .github/
│  ├─ workflows/
│  │  ├─ build-push.yml
├─ actions/
│  ├─ your-action/
│  │  ├─ action.yml
  1. Check-out the repo of the called workflow to workflows
on:
  workflow_call:
    inputs:
      workflows-ref:
        description: "ref of the centralized workflows repo that was specified in 'jobs.<name>.uses'"
        required: true
        type: string
...
    steps:
      - name: Checkout workflows repo # required so we can reference the actions locally
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          ref: ${{ inputs.workflows-ref }}
          path: workflows
          repository: <org>/<central-workflow-repo>
          token: ${{ secrets.GH_ACCESSTOKEN }}
  1. (optional) if you want your calling repo checked out, do so, but to a subdirectory
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          path: app
  1. Start referencing your local actions:
      - uses: ./workflows/actions/your-action

Upvotes: 14

Gustavo Puma
Gustavo Puma

Reputation: 1055

I also had this issue.

When using local actions they need to be placed at the job level (NOT inside the steps of a job). Your caller action should be changed from:

on: [pull_request]
jobs:
  ci:
    uses: vinodsai-a/github-reusable-workflow-sample/.github/workflows/main.yml@main

to:

on: [pull_request]
jobs:
  uses: vinodsai-a/github-reusable-workflow-sample/.github/workflows/main.yml@main

Reference: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-workflows/reusing-workflows#calling-a-reusable-workflow

Upvotes: -1

Soumya Mahunt
Soumya Mahunt

Reputation: 2762

I don't think as of now GitHub allows any way to use actions from reusable workflow repo. Currently. reusable workflow functionality is very limited and all the actions in the reusable workflow run as part of the caller workflow. So when you are specifying to run action in path ./actions/local-action GitHub action is trying to find the action in your caller repo and since the path isn't valid for caller repo you are getting the error.

The current workaround is treat your action as if it is hosted in external repo instead of local path as documented. In your case you can specify vinodsai-a/github-reusable-workflow-sample/actions/local-action@main instead of ./actions/local-action.

Upvotes: 4

aoggz
aoggz

Reputation: 1

I do not believe this is possible at this point in time. You may consider posting your query at https://github.community/c/code-to-cloud/52 to get better visibility to this request.

Upvotes: 0

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