cache VS setup-buildx-action

> with no persistent storage

There's https://github.com/actions/cache though?

Use Cache Actions: GitHub Actions provides cache actions that simplify caching implementation. The @actions/cache JavaScript library is a popular choice for managing caching in workflows. It offers flexible options for storing and retrieving cache artifacts based on keys, scopes, and paths.

GitHub maintain a set of repos called actions. One of which is called cache.

By utilizing the actions/cache action action, we implemented a strategy to store and retrieve dependencies, preventing redundant installations.

I do think it's good practice to enable caching, such that your script doesn't hit RubyGems / pip / npm / etc every time it runs.

That way at least the automation activity stays entirely within the GitHub / Azure network.

It looks like you can do that for Ruby by adding this:

https://github.com/actions/cache/blob/master/examples.md#rub...

    - uses: ruby/setup-ruby@v1

➜ getting-started-with-act git:(master) act -j build WARN ⚠ You are using Apple M1 chip and you have not specified container architecture, you might encounter issues while running act. If so, try running it with '--container-architecture linux/amd64'. ⚠ [Node.js CI/build] 🚀 Start image=node:16-buster-slim [Node.js CI/build] 🐳 docker pull image=node:16-buster-slim platform= username= forcePull=false [Node.js CI/build] 🐳 docker create image=node:16-buster-slim platform= entrypoint=["tail" "-f" "/dev/null"] cmd=[] [Node.js CI/build] 🐳 docker run image=node:16-buster-slim platform= entrypoint=["tail" "-f" "/dev/null"] cmd=[] [Node.js CI/build] ☁ git clone 'https://github.com/actions/setup-node' # ref=v3 [Node.js CI/build] ☁ git clone 'https://github.com/actions/cache' # ref=v3 [Node.js CI/build] ☁ git clone 'https://github.com/actions/upload-artifact' # ref=v3 [Node.js CI/build] ⭐ Run Main actions/checkout@v3 [Node.js CI/build] 🐳 docker cp src=/Users/andrewevans/Documents/projects/getting-started-with-act/. dst=/Users/andrewevans/Documents/projects/getting-started-with-act [Node.js CI/build] ✅ Success - Main actions/checkout@v3 [Node.js CI/build] ⭐ Run Main Use Node.js 16.x [Node.js CI/build] 🐳 docker cp src=/Users/andrewevans/.cache/act/actions-setup-node@v3/ dst=/var/run/act/actions/actions-setup-node@v3/ [Node.js CI/build] 🐳 docker exec cmd=[node /var/run/act/actions/actions-setup-node@v3/dist/setup/index.js] user= workdir= [Node.js CI/build] 💬 ::debug::isExplicit: [Node.js CI/build] 💬 ::debug::explicit? false

You could try to find some point in the process where you can set up Actions caches with actions/cache, otherwise Container customization for Self-Hosted Runners is currently in Beta.

I would configure Github Actions cache so Docker doesn't have to compile all layers from scratch every time

In the copied example, npm caching is done via actions/cache@v2 action. But we can simplify our workflow by dropping this step and using built-in functionality for caching

Good luck running this locally. There's no script code to speak of, just references to external "actions" and parameters (for example, https://github.com/docker/setup-buildx-action).

Some CI platforms are just a simple glue layer (Gitlab CI - which I prefer - is one of them), but in most cases Github CI is not. Maybe it adds to the author frustration?

Set up Docker Buildx: We will use the docker/setup-buildx-action action to set up Docker Buildx.

There’s an amazing docker/bake-action which makes it insanely easy to build all of your containers in the most optimal way. Since we’ve set the group “default” block in the docker-bake.hcl, config is very minimal. One step in your GitHub Action workflow file will build all of your images and will push all of your cache layers, tag all of your containers, and push all your final images. You’ll still have to do things like checkout the code and don’t forget that you’ll want to use the docker/setup-buildx-action since bake is a buildx feature. There’s one quick gotcha for the actual docker/bake-action. We don’t want to push PR builds and we don’t want to pollute the cache with PR builds.

To be clear, that article does NOT provide a solution for avoiding QEMU. I suggested it because it describes "the hard way" to get a single image multi-arch image. The github action crazy-max/ghaction-docker-buildx has been archived and replaced by docker/setup-qemu-action and docker/setup-buildx-action, which it seems like you were already using.

Third step is docker/setup-buildx-action configures buildx, which is a Docker CLI plugin that provides enhanced build capabilities.

We then use the docker/setup-buildx-action action to initialize an environment to build Docker images:

The setup-buildx-action configures Docker Buildx to create a builder instance for running the image build. The following step build-push-action, makes use of that instance to build your Docker image. The build-push-action supports all of the features provided by BuildKit out of the box. In our simple example, we are only specifying the Docker context, but more advanced features like SSH, secrets, and build args are supported.

# Get the repository's code - name: Checkout uses: actions/checkout@v2 # https://github.com/docker/setup-qemu-action - name: Set up QEMU uses: docker/setup-qemu-action@v1 # https://github.com/docker/setup-buildx-action - name: Set up Docker Buildx id: buildx uses: docker/setup-buildx-action@v1

docker/setup-buildx-action@v1 - we use it to setup the docker builder