My Typical Act Commands

act pull_request -W .github/workflows/my-workflow.yml

act push -W .github/workflows/my-workflow.yml

act tags -W .github/workflows/my-workflow.yml

Use a different event file

act pull_request -W .github/workflows/my-workflow.yml -e .actrc.event-1.json

My Typical Act Config

Put these files in the project's root folder, or wherever act will be ran from.

.actrc

# Load event payload from file
-e .actrc.event.json

# Load workflow inputs from file
--input-file .actrc.inputs

# Load secrets and environment variables from file
--var-file .actrc.vars
--secret-file .actrc.secrets

# Cache used Actions
--action-offline-mode

# Run as AMD64 if on ARM64
--container-architecture linux/amd64

.actrc.vars

VAR1=(...)
VAR2=(...)

.actrc.secrets

GITHUB_TOKEN=(...)

.actrc.inputs

{
  "inputs": {
    "var-1": "Hello",
    "var-2": "World"
  }
}

Event Scenarios

Typical content for .actrc.event.json.

Push branch

{
  "ref": "refs/heads/my-feature"
}

Push tag

{
  "base_ref": "refs/heads/main",
  "ref": "refs/tags/v1.0.0"
}

Pull request

{
  "base_ref": "refs/heads/main",
  "ref": "refs/pull/123/merge"
}

Reference

Predownload runner images

ref: https://nektosact.com/usage/runners.html#runners

Generally the medimum size is good. However, there are some advanced workflows that require the large image.

# Large
docker pull act -P ubuntu-latest=-self-hosted
# Medium
docker pull catthehacker/ubuntu:act-latest

act -P ubuntu-latest=catthehacker/ubuntu:full-latest

Config file location

ref: https://nektosact.com/usage/index.html#configuration-file

When act runs it will load command arguments from the following locations

• ~/.config/act/actrc
• ~/.actrc
• <current-folder>/.actrc

Any of the CLI flags can be added to the file. It just appends them when being ran.

Run as AMD64 on ARM64

act push --container-architecture linux/amd64

Skip running in container. Run directly on host.

act -P ubuntu-latest=-self-hosted
act -P windows-latest=-self-hosted
act -P macos-latest=-self-hosted

Use cached actions (to speed things up)

ref: https://nektosact.com/usage/index.html#action-offline-mode

act --action-offline-mode

Change user

act --actor chriswblake

Supress debug output

act | grep -v '::'