GitHub Actions Are a Problem

• runner

  58 4,498 9.1 C#

  The Runner for GitHub Actions :rocket:

  

You can also find many leftovers with the "VSS" acronym, like https://github.com/actions/runner/blob/main/src/Sdk/Common/C... or https://github.com/actions/runner/blob/main/src/Sdk/Common/C... - which also mentions TFS (which is yet another acronym that used to refer to the Microsoft team-development thing).

• act

  145 50,182 9.2 Go

  Run your GitHub Actions locally 🚀

  

I feel I'm being trolled, but I'll bite and accept the resulting downvotes

I don't think treating every mention of act as an opportunity for airing of personal grievances is helpful in a discussion when there's already ample reports of people's concrete issues with it, had one looked at the 800 issues in its repo https://github.com/nektos/act/issues?q=is%3Aissue or the 239 from gitea's for https://gitea.com/gitea/act_runner/issues or whatever is going on with Forgejo's fork https://code.forgejo.org/forgejo/act .

But, as for me specifically, there are two and a half answers: I wanted to run VSCodium's build locally, which act for sure puked about. Then, while trying to troubleshoot that, I thought I'd try something simpler and have it run the lint job from act's own repo <https://github.com/nektos/act/blob/1252e551b8672b1e16dc8835d...> to rule out "you're holding it wrong" type junk. It died with

  [checks/lint]     Failure - Main actions/setup-go@v3

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• action-tmate

  13 2,643 4.3 JavaScript

  Debug your GitHub Actions via SSH by using tmate to get access to the runner system itself.

You might also be interested in https://github.com/mxschmitt/action-tmate, which enables SSH to workers for debugging. If you have trouble reproducing issues on CI, this can be a life saver (or at least save a few hours of commit-push-wait rounds).

• windmill

  86 8,518 10.0 Svelte

  Open-source developer platform to turn scripts into workflows and UIs. Fastest workflow engine (5x vs Airflow). Open-source alternative to Airplane and Retool.

  

We have built an open-source generic workflow engine to run arbitrary scripts (https://windmill.dev) with a vscode extension to build the yaml using a low-code builder and each individual script in their dedicated python/ts files so you get your full editor assistants https://youtu.be/aSOF6AzyDr8?t=116

One of the area we are expanding next is a github app so you get exactly the same UX as github actions but running windmill workflows on your windmill workers.

• BrowserBox

  43 3,171 9.9 JavaScript

  🌀 Browse the web from a browser you run on a server, rather than on your local device. Lightweight virtual browser. For security, privacy and more! By https://github.com/dosyago

  

I actually really like GitHub actions, I read the article and while I get some of the concerns, others I don't understand. In any case the author's situation doesn't apply to me, and I wanted to share something I really liked about GHA.

So, I recently figured out a way to host a remote browser on them by using an Ngrok tunnel. It's really cool to see BrowserBox running from inside a GitHub action container. I literally couldn't believe it actually worked when I first figured it out!

I was so excited. It started as just this tech prototype in my mind (could this be possible? Probably not but I Feel like it could be). And to see it actually achieved so cool! :)

I thought this was so cool, and such a useful way for people to either just get started with BrowserBox trying it out, or even run a quick little VPN-like/proxy browser from another region, that I wrote an action that integrates with issues to make the process as easy as possible for people.

Basically you can just clone or fork the repo: https://github.com/BrowserBox/BrowserBox and then open an issue and pick the template that is like "Make VPN". The login link will get published in the repo. The link is not private (unless you make your fork or template private) and there's a bit of setup with your ngrok API key (free is OK) but the issue conversation automatically guides you through all that.

I thought this was so cool (free server time, actually working app), that I created another version that uses MS Edge under the hood instead of Chrome in the original, just to show how easy it is: https://github.com/EdgeLord/EdgeLord

Just a niggle is that the other services we normally have (secure doc viewer, audio, remote devtools) do not work as ngrok only maps 1 port. I could use an ngrok config file I think to fix that but somehow, easy as that is, I have not gotten around to it! Another niggle is I noticed the auto-tab opening used in the GHA demo seems a little funky lately, and you may need to manually reload or resize them to un-wonkify it. Probably a little regression!

Anyway! :)

• EdgeLord

  1 - -

I actually really like GitHub actions, I read the article and while I get some of the concerns, others I don't understand. In any case the author's situation doesn't apply to me, and I wanted to share something I really liked about GHA.

So, I recently figured out a way to host a remote browser on them by using an Ngrok tunnel. It's really cool to see BrowserBox running from inside a GitHub action container. I literally couldn't believe it actually worked when I first figured it out!

I was so excited. It started as just this tech prototype in my mind (could this be possible? Probably not but I Feel like it could be). And to see it actually achieved so cool! :)

I thought this was so cool, and such a useful way for people to either just get started with BrowserBox trying it out, or even run a quick little VPN-like/proxy browser from another region, that I wrote an action that integrates with issues to make the process as easy as possible for people.

Basically you can just clone or fork the repo: https://github.com/BrowserBox/BrowserBox and then open an issue and pick the template that is like "Make VPN". The login link will get published in the repo. The link is not private (unless you make your fork or template private) and there's a bit of setup with your ngrok API key (free is OK) but the issue conversation automatically guides you through all that.

I thought this was so cool (free server time, actually working app), that I created another version that uses MS Edge under the hood instead of Chrome in the original, just to show how easy it is: https://github.com/EdgeLord/EdgeLord

Just a niggle is that the other services we normally have (secure doc viewer, audio, remote devtools) do not work as ngrok only maps 1 port. I could use an ngrok config file I think to fix that but somehow, easy as that is, I have not gotten around to it! Another niggle is I noticed the auto-tab opening used in the GHA demo seems a little funky lately, and you may need to manually reload or resize them to un-wonkify it. Probably a little regression!

Anyway! :)

• gitlab-foss

  47 - -

* Gitlab EE (enterprise edition) is closed, but Gitlab CE (community edition) is open source (https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/)

* I didn't follow the Gitea drama too closely, but my understanding is that Forgejo was a fork born out of that situation

* I've heard the SourceHut guy is a controversial figure, so avoiding it because of that isn't unreasonable. I will just say that "spite forks" tend not to last very long

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• setup-buildx-action

  14 861 8.0 TypeScript

  GitHub Action to set up Docker Buildx

  

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?

• vscodium

  535 23,687 9.5 Shell

  binary releases of VS Code without MS branding/telemetry/licensing

  

> 2. To test/debug CI jobs, use act.

I can't wait for this meme to die, or for act (or gitea's fork thereof) to catch up to the hype train. Then again, I guess this fantasy is being promoted by folks who are all "just use run: and that's it" because any moderately complex one <https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/blob/1.84.2.23314/.gith...> for sure fails with spectacularly illegible error messages under both act and gitea's fork

• garden

  40 3,255 9.9 TypeScript

  Automation for Kubernetes development and testing. Spin up production-like environments for development, testing, and CI on demand. Use the same configuration and workflows at every step of the process. Speed up your builds and test runs via shared result caching

  

Yes, there's us over at https://github.com/garden-io/garden! We're big believers in pipelines that run anywhere. I even made a short little video that should give you the gist. [1]

Some of the short-list of differences: we use YAML for our configuration language, Dagger can use full-fat languages to define its pipelines. Our feature scope is broader: you can use us to vend IDP-like stacks to your developers if you're a Platform Team; we make development with remote Kubernetes clusters very easy, including all the remote image builds; and we have a number of integrations so you can bring your IaC tool of choice (Pulumi, Terraform) into your pipeline and set up service -> infra dependencies.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFnan6s2cDg

• trustacks

  1 6 7.6 Go
  

The non-video TruStacks link: https://github.com/TruStacks/trustacks#trustacks-software-de... (Golang; GPLv3)

The non-video Gale link: https://github.com/aweris/gale#github-action-local-executor (Golang; Apache 2)

• gale

  1 136 9.0 Go

  GitHub Action Local Executor (by aweris)

The non-video TruStacks link: https://github.com/TruStacks/trustacks#trustacks-software-de... (Golang; GPLv3)

The non-video Gale link: https://github.com/aweris/gale#github-action-local-executor (Golang; Apache 2)

• cicada

  9 559 9.2 Python

  A FOSS, cross-platform version of GitHub Actions and Gitlab CI (by Cicada-Software)

  

Not sure if related, but recently read about https://github.com/Cicada-Software/cicada which looks like to abstract GithubCI and GitlabCI.

• azure-pipelines-agent

  15 1,673 9.1 C#

  Azure Pipelines Agent 🚀

  

> GitHub Actions is based on Visual Studio Team Foundation Server's CI, and later Azure DevOps

Yes and no, ADO Agent (https://github.com/microsoft/azure-pipelines-agent) is far more secretive and "black-box" alike.

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Suggest a related project