cache-apt-pkgs-action/V2_FAQ.MD

Cache APT Packages Action v2 :: FAQ

Why did you create a new version?

Bash Scripts

Bash shell scripting grew in complexity and became very unreadable. The action needed higher level language idioms like:

• arrays, map handling, complex pattern matching, and complex text processing;
• robust logging, debugging, other instrumentations; and
• avoiding cryptic shell and system environment considerations.

The lack of these

Language Choice

Languages like Python, Go, Rust, etc. have performance and writeability trade offs that would also meet these requirements, but ultimately Typescript was chosen because it:

• is the most performant and well supported for GitHub actions;
• has native strongly typed libraries for actions maintained by GitHub like
  • @actions/core for runtime environment, and
  • other common services like @actions/cache and @actions/artifact;
• requires no binary compilation;
• provides a balance of code comprehension and performance for contributors; and
• allows for better continuous integration, release workflow, hermetic unit testing, and smoke testing.

Where did all the APT functionality go?

Since this has been a complex part of the codebase, I decided to separate the concern as its own library. This can now be found at npm/ts-apt with the sourcecode in the awalsh128/ts-apt repository.

For ease of use there is an option to bring in the workspace for inline source via npm run dev:tsapt:[un]link so it can be debugged and then PR'd to the awalsh128/ts-apt repository.

How do I start using this?

Important

This is in the early phase of development. Use at your own risk!

No change is needed and the action signatures are backwards compatible.

• Just change to the latest v2.* in your GitHub workflow.
• v1.* will still get patch updates but is in maintenance mode.

Some internal changes

• Logging uses native GitHub calls that will result in run annotations.
• Output will tend to be more verbose but this will be tuned as this version matures.
• All the metadata generated like manifests, the cache key, and logs are now stored as artifacts.
• Debug mode can either be specified via an input parameter debug or as part of the repository settings.