StirlingLabs/Actions

⚠️ This is a special repo! It has a private partner at StirlingLabs/Actions-private

Our PUBLIC GitHub Actions Workflows

• 'dotnetBuild' builds Stirling Labs C# repos that are prepared appropriately:
  • Include Version.Net (see page for details)
  • Uses GitHubActionsTestLogger (dotnet add package GitHubActionsTestLogger)
• dotnetRelease
• linter lints code, including this repo.
• 'metadata' tries to get information about the project.
• name tries to get the project name (used by metadata).
• Threshold reduces pointless runs if nothing has changed since the last run (use [forceci] in commit message to force run).
• version tries to ascertain the version of the project (used by metadata).

GitHub Reuusable Actions

• See GitHub documentation on [Reusable Workflows]](https://github.blog/2022-02-10-using-reusable-workflows-github-actions/) for details.

Coding Recommendations

• Break up steps as much as you can, practically. This makes it easier for users to see what has happened.
• echo enough to make sure a user can see what has gone wrong. Be a bit more verbose than you might assume, because users won't have as much context as you do when writing it.
• Use bash as your shell unless forced not to by some important external requirement.
  • default: ... shell: bash is generally available and should be used whenever possible
  • job-level env is useful for turning off dotnet tracking & logo:

      env:
        DOTNET_NOLOGO: true
        DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT: true

• Within steps:
  • env comes before run
  • Use bash functions to organise code
    • At least main() {}
  • End bash scripts with at least exit but ideally main "$@" ; exit. This makes it easy to see the end of the script within the Action (amoung other benefits).
• lowerCamelCase variables in bash but lower_snake_case in $GITHUB_OUTPUT.
• Try not to use "true" & "false" as string values (it is confusing when compared to input booleans) rather use more meaningful variables and values. E.g.
  • ❌ continue=true
  • ✅ result=success