unable to inject shell to composite action

[igagis]

Describe the bug
Unable to pass the shell via input parameter to the composite action.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. create following composite action:

name: 'test actions'
description: 'test action description'
inputs:
  shell:
    description: 'shell to use'
    required: false
    default: bash
runs:
  using: "composite"
  steps:
    - name:
      run: echo "bla bla bla"
      shell: ${{ inputs.shell}}

2. use the action in some workflow
3. Job fails on the 'Set up job' phase, printing the following errors:

Current runner version: '2.274.2'
Operating System
Virtual Environment
Prepare workflow directory
Prepare all required actions
Getting action download info
Download action repository 'msys2/setup-msys2@v2'
Download action repository 'actions/checkout@main'
Download action repository 'myci-actions/add-pacman-repo@master'
Error: myci-actions\add-pacman-repo\master\action.yml (Line: 25, Col: 14):
Error: myci-actions\add-pacman-repo\master\action.yml (Line: 25, Col: 14): Unrecognized named-value: 'inputs'. Located at position 1 within expression: inputs.shell
Error: GitHub.DistributedTask.ObjectTemplating.TemplateValidationException: The template is not valid. myci-actions\add-pacman-repo\master\action.yml (Line: 25, Col: 14): Unrecognized named-value: 'inputs'. Located at position 1 within expression: inputs.shell
   at GitHub.DistributedTask.ObjectTemplating.TemplateValidationErrors.Check()
   at GitHub.Runner.Worker.ActionManifestManager.ConvertRuns(IExecutionContext executionContext, TemplateContext templateContext, TemplateToken inputsToken, String f[...]
Error: Fail to load myci-actions\add-pacman-repo\master\action.yml

where (Line: 25, Col: 14) corresponds to the last line of the action from step 1. I.e. shell: ${{ inputs.shell}}

Expected behavior
The action works fine and uses the shell passed in as input argument to the action.

Runner Version and Platform

windows-latest

[chenghuang-mdsol]

Yea. this is annoying, please fix this.

[iamFIREcracker]

Any workaround? Right now, the only one I can think of is, duplicating all my actions steps and have shell set to msys2 {0} on Windows, and bash elsewhere.

[iamFIREcracker]

FYI, rather than duplicating steps, I ended up sym-linking OS-specific shells to a known location, and changed my steps to specify that new location as shell parameter.

    - name: Create bash-or-msys2
      shell: bash
      run: |
        if [[ "$RUNNER_OS" == "Windows" ]]; then
            powershell New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink \
              -Path  "D:/a/_temp/setup-msys2/bash-or-msys2.cmd" \
              -Target "D:/a/_temp/setup-msys2/msys2.cmd"
        else
            sudo ln -sf $(which bash) /usr/local/bin/bash-or-msys2
        fi
        ...
    - name: Upgrade ASDF to the Latest Version
      shell: bash-or-msys2 {0}
      run: |
        if [[ "${{ inputs.asdf-version }}" != "latest" ]]; then
            echo ::group::Installing ASDF ${{ inputs.asdf-version }}
            ros install asdf/${{ inputs.asdf-version }}
        else
            echo ::group::Installing latest ASDF
            ros install asdf
        fi
        echo ::endgroup::

Not ideal, but not as ugly as duplicating each and every step.

[marten-seemann]

Now that GitHub Actions supports ifs in steps, this can be simplified a bit:

    - name: create bash-or-msys2 (for bash)
      shell: bash
      if: inputs.shell == 'bash'
      run: sudo ln -sf $(which bash) /usr/local/bin/bash-or-msys2
    - name: create bash-or-msys2 (for msys2)
      shell: bash
      if: inputs.shell == 'msys2 {0}'
      run: |
        if [[ ! -f "D:/a/_temp/setup-msys2/bash-or-msys2.cmd" ]]; then
          powershell New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path "D:/a/_temp/setup-msys2/bash-or-msys2.cmd" -Target "D:/a/_temp/setup-msys2/msys2.cmd"
        fi

[xucian]

1 year?

[igagis]

@tfgstudios this is how software is developed nowadays...

[reuben]

Weirdly this feature is explicitly documented in an ADR as if it should work seamlessly: https://github.com/actions/runner/blob/e7d74da1600b1aa8ac8db18cc4c76ef44a82e689/docs/adrs/0549-composite-run-steps.md#shell-and-working-directory

[reuben]

@ethanchewy since you wrote the docs above maybe you can comment on the status here?

[nikola-jokic]

Hey everyone, we are reproducing this issue and we will notify you as soon as it is fixed 😊

[ironstas1k]

We are still experiencing this issue using ubuntu-latest runners.

The workflow is not valid. .github/workflows/workflow_test.yml (Line: 20, Col: 16): Unrecognized named-value: 'inputs'. Located at position 1 within expression: inputs.shell .github/workflows/workflow_test.yml (Line: 24, Col: 16): Unrecognized named-value: 'inputs'. Located at position 1 within expression: inputs.shell

Workflow

name: Workflow Tests

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      shell:
        description: 'shell to use'
        required: false
        default: bash
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Verify parameters
        run: echo "cond step"
        shell: ${{ inputs.shell }}

[AvivPeledTalon]

We are still experiencing this issue using ubuntu-latest runners.

The workflow is not valid. .github/workflows/workflow_test.yml (Line: 20, Col: 16): Unrecognized named-value: 'inputs'. Located at position 1 within expression: inputs.shell .github/workflows/workflow_test.yml (Line: 24, Col: 16): Unrecognized named-value: 'inputs'. Located at position 1 within expression: inputs.shell

Workflow

name: Workflow Tests

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      shell:
        description: 'shell to use'
        required: false
        default: bash
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Verify parameters
        run: echo "cond step"
        shell: ${{ inputs.shell }}

Also experiencing this.
Did your fix only affect composite actions? It seems like it doesn't affect run steps (they still don't recognize the inputs context)