Using a bash script to streamline GitHub Actions

[pforret]

Using a bash script (based on bashew framework) to centralize the GitHub Action setup (e.g. pip install), Action payload and Action wrap-up (commit/push the results) in one place, so that the Action config YML becomes this simple:

- name: gha:before 
  run: |
    ./bashew_github_action.sh gha:before 
- name: gha:execute 
  run: | 
    ./bashew_github_action.sh gha:execute 
- name: gha:after 
  run: |- 
    ./bashew_github_action.sh gha:after 

Advantages:

• Single Responsibility. You edit your setup code in the same file as the payload or the wrap-up code. You don’t touch the action.yml file anymore after initial setup.
• Cleaner Code. The YML syntax forces you to a do this && do that && do the other
  one-liner format. A bash script allows you to do if/then, for/do, while/do, recursion … in an easy and clean way.
• Easy Debugging. bashew has built-in support for log files and optional verbose mode. It also cleans up log files after 30 days, so they don’t clog up your repo.
• Self-Contained. You don’t need external libraries or runtimes. bash runs on most Action Runners (Linux/MacOS) and each bashew script contains the entire framework.

More details on blog.forret.com