cache-apt-pkgs-action

This action allows caching of Advanced Package Tool (APT) package dependencies to improve workflow execution time instead of installing the packages on every run.

Documentation

This action is a composition of actions/cache and the apt utility. Some actions require additional APT based packages to be installed in order for other steps to be executed. Packages can be installed when ran but can consume much of the execution workflow time.

Usage

Pre-requisites

Create a workflow .yml file in your repositories .github/workflows directory. An example workflow is available below. For more information, reference the GitHub Help Documentation for Creating a workflow file.

Versions

There are three kinds of version labels you can use.

• @latest - This will give you the latest release.
• @v# - Major only will give you the latest release for that major version only (e.g. v1).
• Branch
  • @master - Most recent manual and automated tested code. Possibly unstable since it is pre-release.
  • @staging - Most recent automated tested code and can sometimes contain experimental features. Is pulled from dev stable code.
  • @dev - Very unstable and contains experimental features. Automated testing may not show breaks since CI is also updated based on code in dev.

Inputs

• packages - Space delimited list of packages to install.
• version - Version of cache to load. Each version will have its own cache. Note, all characters except spaces are allowed.
• execute_install_scripts - Execute Debian package pre and post install script upon restore. See Caveats / Non-file Dependencies for more information.
• empty_packages_behavior - Desired behavior when the given packages is empty. 'error' (default), 'warn' or 'ignore'.

Outputs

• cache-hit - A boolean value to indicate a cache was found for the packages requested.
• package-version-list - The main requested packages and versions that are installed. Represented as a comma delimited list with equals delimit on the package version (i.e. <package1>=<version1>,<package2>=<version2>,...).
• all-package-version-list - All the pulled in packages and versions, including dependencies, that are installed. Represented as a comma delimited list with equals delimit on the package version (i.e. <package1>=<version1>,<package2>=<version2>,...).

Security Compliance

This action runs as a JavaScript GitHub Action on the node24 runtime and does not require consumers to run npm install in their workflow in order to use it. The implementation dependency surface is limited to the action runtime packages declared in package.json: @actions/cache, @actions/core, tar, winston, and ts-apt.

For workflows with stricter compliance requirements, the main security characteristics are:

• packages should be treated as an allowlisted input in your workflow. Prefer explicit package names and versions where reproducibility matters.
• version can be used as a cache namespace so you can intentionally rotate caches when package policy or runner baselines change.
• empty_packages_behavior can be left at the default error to fail closed when an expected package list is missing.
• execute_install_scripts is disabled by default. Enable it only when required, because Debian maintainer scripts execute arbitrary package-provided shell logic during restore.
• debug is disabled by default. Enable it only for investigation and review logs before sharing them outside your organization.

Features

Security-relevant action features:

• Package inputs are normalized before cache lookup, which reduces accidental cache divergence from ordering, commas, backslashes, or duplicate whitespace in the package list.
• Unpinned package names are resolved to concrete package versions before the cache key is generated, which improves traceability of what was actually cached for a run.
• Cache keys are derived from the normalized package set, the user-provided version, and the runner architecture, which helps isolate caches across package changes and incompatible platforms.
• The action rejects invalid boolean inputs and rejects version values containing spaces, reducing ambiguous workflow configuration.
• When creating archives, the action records installed package manifests and only archives existing files and symlinks from installed packages, plus maintainer scripts when present.
• The package-version-list and all-package-version-list outputs can be captured by downstream workflow steps for audit logs, attestation inputs, or compliance reporting.

Usage Recommendations

For GitHub Actions workflow hardening, prefer the following controls around this action:

• Pin this action to a major version you trust, or to a full commit SHA for stricter supply chain control.
• Use the minimum required workflow permissions instead of broad defaults.
• Run on GitHub-hosted or otherwise trusted runners with controlled APT sources.
• Limit who can modify workflow files and package lists through branch protection and pull request review.
• Review whether cached APT contents are acceptable for your repository's cache retention policy and data handling requirements.

Example hardened usage:

permissions:
  contents: read

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: awalsh128/cache-apt-pkgs-action@v2
        with:
          packages: curl=8.5.0-2ubuntu10.6 jq=1.7.1-3build1
          version: ubuntu-24.04-v1
          empty_packages_behavior: error
          execute_install_scripts: false
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Cache scopes

The cache is scoped to the packages given and the branch. The default branch cache is available to other branches.

Example workflow

This was a motivating use case for creating this action.

name: Create Documentation
on: push
jobs:
  build_and_deploy_docs:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: Build Doxygen documentation and deploy
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: awalsh128/cache-apt-pkgs-action@latest
        with:
          packages: dia doxygen doxygen-doc doxygen-gui doxygen-latex graphviz mscgen
          version: 1.0

      - name: Build
        run: |
          cmake -B ${{github.workspace}}/build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=${{env.BUILD_TYPE}}      
          cmake --build ${{github.workspace}}/build --config ${{env.BUILD_TYPE}}

      - name: Deploy
        uses: JamesIves/github-pages-deploy-action@4.1.5
        with:
          branch: gh-pages
          folder: ${{github.workspace}}/build/website
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---
install_doxygen_deps:
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - uses: awalsh128/cache-apt-pkgs-action@latest
      with:
        packages: dia doxygen doxygen-doc doxygen-gui doxygen-latex graphviz mscgen
        version: 1.0
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Caveats

Non-file Dependencies

This action is based on the principle that most packages can be cached as a fileset. There are situations though where this is not enough.

• Pre and post installation scripts needs to be ran from /var/lib/dpkg/info/{package name}.[preinst, postinst].
• The Debian package database needs to be queried for scripts above (i.e. dpkg-query).

The execute_install_scripts argument can be used to attempt to execute the install scripts but they are no guaranteed to resolve the issue.

- uses: awalsh128/cache-apt-pkgs-action@latest
  with:
    packages: mypackage
    version: 1.0
    execute_install_scripts: true
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If this does not solve your issue, you will need to run apt-get install as a separate step for that particular package unfortunately.

run: apt-get install mypackage
shell: bash
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Please reach out if you have found a workaround for your scenario and it can be generalized. There is only so much this action can do and can't get into the area of reverse engineering Debian package manager. It would be beyond the scope of this action and may result in a lot of extended support and brittleness. Also, it would be better to contribute to Debian packager instead at that point.

For more context and information see issue #57 which contains the investigation and conclusion.

Cache Limits

A repository can have up to 5GB of caches. Once the 5GB limit is reached, older caches will be evicted based on when the cache was last accessed. Caches that are not accessed within the last week will also be evicted. To get more information on how to access and manage your actions's caches, see GitHub Actions / Using workflows / Cache dependencies.