download-artifact VS cache

The subsequent jobs will be running the Github Actions Download Artifact, in order to retrieve the dist/ folder content.

Artifacts are files like APKs, screenshots, test reports, logs, which the workflow generates. You can upload and download artifacts to the current workflow using actions/upload-artifact@v2 and actions/download-artifact@v2 respectively.

Artifacts: actions/upload-artifact, actions/download-artifact.

The actions used upload-artifact, download-artifact, goreleaser-action

actions/download-artifact@v2 - we use it to download our artifacts in between jobs

download-artifact

Refer here for the previous version

> 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