Running actions in another directory

MylesK picture MylesK · Sep 27, 2019 · Viewed 13.7k times · Source

I've just started exploring Github actions however I've found myself placing a command in multiple places.

I have a PHP project where the composer.json is not in the root, my structure looks like:

my-project:
    readme.md
    app:
        composer.json

Obviously there is more to it and there is a reason why, but my composer.json sits in a subdirectory called 'app'. As a result in my workflow, I have to cd into that folder every time to run a command:

name: CI

on: [push]

jobs:
  phpunit:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v1
      - name: Setup Symfony
        run: |
          cd app
          cp .env.dev .env
      - name: Install Composer Dependencies
        run: |
          cd app
          composer install --prefer-dist
      - name: Run Tests
        run: |
          cd app
          php bin/phpunit

How can I remove the cd app in every stage?

Answer

peterevans picture peterevans · Sep 28, 2019

Update: It's now possible to set a working-directory default for a job. See this answer.

There is an option to set a working-directory on a step, but not for multiple steps or a whole job. I'm fairly sure this option only works for script steps, not action steps with uses.

https://help.github.com/en/articles/workflow-syntax-for-github-actions#jobsjob_idstepsworking-directory

Using working-directory, your workflow would look like this. It's still quite verbose but maybe a bit cleaner.

name: CI

on: [push]

jobs:
  phpunit:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v1
      - name: Setup Symfony
        working-directory: ./app
        run: cp .env.dev .env
      - name: Install Composer Dependencies
        working-directory: ./app
        run: composer install --prefer-dist
      - name: Run Tests
        working-directory: ./app
        run: php bin/phpunit

Alternatively, you can run it all in one step so that you only need to specify working-directory once.

name: CI

on: [push]

jobs:
  phpunit:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v1
      - name: Setup and run tests
        working-directory: ./app
        run: |
          cp .env.dev .env
          composer install --prefer-dist
          php bin/phpunit