Feature request: Configure GitHub action in workflow file

[kantoniak]

Hello @fernandrone, would it be possible to configure this action directly in workflow file?

[fernandrone]

Hi @kantoniak. Yes, and there's an example of this being used as a github action in this very repo: https://github.com/fernandrone/linelint/blob/master/.github/workflows/lint.yml. There's also some more information in the README.

Please let me know if this answers your question or if you run into any trouble 🙂

[kantoniak]

I mean moving flow options directly to a yaml in .github/workflows/ folder, something like below.

on: [push]
name: lint

jobs:
  linelint:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: Check if all files end in newline
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Linelint
        uses: fernandrone/linelint@master
        id: linelint
        rules:
          end-of-file:
            enable: true
            disable-autofix: false
            single-new-line: true

It seems to be generally possible but not implemented for this action.

[fernandrone]

Oh, yeah, I got you now. You are correct, you can use this as an workflow but the individual options are not supported.

However the workflow will still read the options from a .linelint.yml file at the root of your repository. So you can configure your options there. That's why I didn't make this feature a priority 👍🏻 would that help?

That said I do think it would be nice to be able to override some options through the workflow (just like you can override options as cli arguments) so I'd be inclined to accept any PRs adding support for this 🙂

Also I have some free time for the next couple weeks that I'd like to invest in this project although I'm not sure this is my topmost priority (since the .linelint.yml config should work for many use cases).

[fernandrone]

Hey @kantoniak I've decided to take a quick look at this and I'm not sure it's possible with this syntax:

      - name: Linelint
        uses: fernandrone/linelint@master
        id: linelint
        rules:
          end-of-file:
            enable: true
            disable-autofix: false
            single-new-line: true

I don't have a lot of experience with github actions but checking the docs, to pass parameters it seems you need to use the with syntax, see https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/actions/reference/workflow-syntax-for-github-actions#jobsjob_idstepswith (please let me know if you know of another way)

jobs:
  my_first_job:
    steps:
      - name: My first step
        uses: actions/hello_world@main
        with:
          first_name: Mona
          middle_name: The
          last_name: Octocat

The thing with this is that there is only a single level of configuration, so it would be very hard to map the multi-depth level configuration required for the linter. Maybe if we use prefixes like this:

      - name: Linelint
        uses: fernandrone/linelint@master
        id: linelint
        with:
          eof-enable: true
          eof-disable-autofix:
          eof-single-new-line: true

Where eof is short for end-of-file. But this can get very complex really fast and I don't see much advantage in just setting up a configuration file at the root of the repo and read from there, like this https://github.com/fernandrone/linelint/blob/master/.linelint.yml

Maybe at most add a single parameter to allow for a different file, like:

      - name: Linelint
        uses: fernandrone/linelint@master
        id: linelint
        with:
          config: ./.github/workflow-linelint.yml

This way the user is not forced to use the default .linelint.yml file at the root of the repo for their github action.

How does that sound?

[kantoniak]

Thank you for the research! :) I'll just try to make a PR on my own when I have more time.

[bwrsandman]

Any news on this feature?

[fernandrone]

Hey, thanks for asking; just a disclaimer: I haven't dedicated a lot of time on this project for the past months, mostly because I'm happy with what it does right now, which is why there hasn't been much news. But I'm using both in personal projects and in production as-is.

About this feature, see the previous comment #4 (comment)

I recommend:

1. Configuring a github action normally, per the README https://github.com/fernandrone/linelint#github-actions

2. Using a config file to set your configuration https://github.com/fernandrone/linelint/blob/master/.linelint.yml

Unfortunately you still can't parameterize the action directly. But the action will still read your .linelint.yml.

The reason I didn't get around to it is the same as the previous comment, the configuration file is very complex and hard to translate into environment variables. So I'm not sure I'll ever support that (maybe I will, but only if I think of a reasonable way of transform the config file parameters into environment variables which can then be transformed into github action input parameters).

Let me know if that works for you. If it doesn't, let me know why and we'll see if we can work something out 👍🏻

[bwrsandman]

I ended up creating a linelint.yml file using echo ... >> .linelint.yml add a step