Comment by smetj
8 hours ago
Its not Github Actions' fault but the horrors people create in it, all under the pretense that automation is simply about wrapping a GitHub Action around something. Learn to create a script in Python or similar and put all logic there so you can execute it locally and can port it to the next CI system when a new CTO arrives.
I think in this case they hate the fact that they cannot easily SSH into the failing VM and debug from there. Like "I have to edit my workflow, push it, wait for it to run and fail, and repeat".
Yep, my company moved onto GH Actions a few years ago and this was probably the single biggest pain point. But also the whole system just feels awkward and annoying to work with. It feels like a classic Microsoft product that would never get traction from a standalone company but because it's part of Microsoft/GitHub and is "good enough" lots of people put up with it.
I had the weirdest thing happen a few days ago.. and only seemed to be happening in the GH runner for a PR.... somehow a function was duplicated in the action runner, and not in local or anwhere else... no idea how the corruption happened... it literally took me hours or pushing minor changes to try to correct the issue... I finally cat'd that file contents out and yep, the function was duplicated... no idea how. Had to create a new branch, copy the changes and then it worked.|
Still no idea what happened or how to ever fix/prevent it again.
One can get the ssh access with self-hosted runners but it is problematic because uncovering secrets becomes trivial.
Uncovering secrets is usually trivial. `printenv` in a build script does that pretty reliably.
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CircleCI had this exact feature
The hard parts are things like deploying artifacts, publishing releases, caching, etc. that are CI-specific and can't be run locally.
> Learn to create a script in Python or similar and put all logic there so you can execute it locally and can port it to the next CI system when a new CTO arrives.
That's a perfectly good several weeks of time un-estimateable busywork I could be getting paid for!
This is giving "Debian systemd units call their old init.d scripts" energy but I kind of like it
systemd units that are small, simple, and call into a single script are usually fantastic. There's no reason for these scripts to be part of another init system; but making as much of your code completely agnostic to the env it runs in sounds good regardless. I think that's the feeling you're feeling.
It's 100% GA's fault and they do it on purpose.
No, it is github's fault. They encourage the horrors because they lead to vendor lock in. This is the source of most of Microsoft's real profit margins.
This is probably why they invented a whole programming language and then neglected to build any debugging tools for it.