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Use the GitHub Actions Drone plugin

Run GitHub Actions in your Harness CI pipelines.

GitHub Actions are a GitHub feature that enable you to automate various event-driven activities in GitHub, such as cloning a repository, generating Docker images, and testing scripts.

There are two ways you can run GitHub Actions in Harness CI pipelines:

This topic explains how to use the GitHub Actions Drone plugin in a Plugin step.

Add the Plugin step

You need a CI pipeline with a Build stage.

  1. In your pipeline's Build stage, and a Plugin step.

  2. Enter a Name and optional Description.

  3. For Container Registry, select a container registry connector that has Docker Hub access.

  4. In Image, enter the name of the GitHub Actions Drone Plugin image: plugins/github-actions.

  5. Under Optional Configuration, enable Privileged.

    Privileged is required because the GitHub Actions Drone Plugin uses nektos/act to run GitHub Actions in Harness CI, which requires DinD (Docker-in-Docker) to run images.

Define Action variables and attributes

Use Settings to specify the GitHub Action you want to use and to pass variables and attributes required by the Action and the Drone Plugin. You must specify uses and with. You can use env to specify environment variables, such as GitHub tokens to access private Action repos.

Key
Description
Value format
Value example

uses

Required. Specify the Action's repo, along with a branch or tag.

[repo]@[tag]

actions/setup-go@v3

with

Required. Provide a map of key-value pairs representing settings required by the GitHub Action itself.

key: value

go-version: '>=1.17.0' or {path: pom.xml, destination: cie-demo-pipeline/github-action, credentials: <+stage.variables.GCP_SECRET_KEY_BASE64>}

env

Conditionally required. Specify a map of environment variables to pass to the Action. Required for Private Action repos, Duplicate Actions, Actions requiring a defined working directory, or if otherwise noted in the Action's usage specifications.

key: value

GITHUB_TOKEN: <+secrets.getValue("github_pat")>

You can use variable expressions for these values. For example, credentials: <+stage.variables.[TOKEN_SECRET]> uses a stage variable.

Private Action repos

If you want to use an Action that is in a private repository, you must add a GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable to the Plugin step's settings.env. You need a GitHub personal access token that has pull permissions to the target repository. Additional permissions may be necessary depending on the Action's purpose. Store the token as a Harness secret and use a variable expression, such as <+secrets.getValue("YOUR_TOKEN_SECRET")>, to call it.

  • Key: GItHUB_TOKEN

  • Value: <+secrets.getValue("YOUR_TOKEN_SECRET")>

Here's an example of the YAML for a Plugin step using an Action in a private repo:

Duplicate Actions

If you run multiple instances of the same GitHub Action, either in parallel or with a looping strategy, you must set the XDG_CACHE_HOME environment variable.

The default value of this variable is /home/ubuntu/.cache; however, the XDG_CACHE_HOME variable must have a different value for each instance of the Action. If you have separate steps running in parallel, you can assign distinct values to each step, such as XDG_CACHE_HOME: /home/ubuntu/.cache1. If you apply a looping strategy to repeat one step multiple times, you can use an expression to generate distinct values, such as XDG_CACHE_HOME: /home/ubuntu/.cache<+step.identifier>.

In this example, two parallel Plugin steps run the same GitHub Action. Each step has a unique value for XDG_CACHE_HOME.

Output Variables from GitHub Actions Drone Plugin Step

When using GitHub Actions Drone Plugin step in Harness CI, it is now possible to output variables from steps in your workflow. This feature allows seamless passing of values between steps, enabling complex pipelines and dynamic workflows.

Here's an example pipeline that demonstrates how to use GitHub Actions Drone Plugin step in Harness CI to output variables and reference them in subsequent steps:

Actions requiring a defined working directory

Some GitHub Actions need to run on the cloned codebase. The GitHub Action plugin doesn't automatically set a working directory.

If this is required by the Action you want to run, and the Action offers a working directory parameter, then you need to specify the working directory as /harness. For example:

If the Action ingests the working directory as an environment variable, place it under env.

If the Action doesn't offer a way to set a working directory, it most likely won't run in Harness.

Pipeline YAML example

This YAML example uses a Plugin step to run the Google upload-cloud-storage GitHub Action. It uses a stage variable to store a token secret required by the Action. If you copy this example, you need to modify the placeholder values, image, and other settings according to your needs. You'll also need to create your own secret and stage variable.

For more examples of GitHub Actions in Plugin steps, go to the GitHub Actions Support in Harness CI blog post.

Action logs

When you run the pipeline, you can observe the GitHub Action plugin logs in the build's logs.

Troubleshooting GitHub Actions in Harness CI

Go to the CI Knowledge Base for questions and issue related to plugins and integrations, including GitHub Actions. For example:

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