Act

Run GitHub Actions locally with act. Use when a user asks to test GitHub Actions workflows locally, debug CI pipelines without pushing, or run workflows offline.

terminalskills Updated

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Act

Overview

Act runs GitHub Actions workflows locally using Docker. Test and debug CI pipelines without pushing to GitHub. Supports most GitHub Actions features.

Instructions

Step 1: Install

brew install act

Step 2: Run Workflows

act                          # run push event
act pull_request             # run PR event
act -j test                  # run specific job
act -W .github/workflows/ci.yml  # specific workflow
act --secret-file .env.secrets   # with secrets

Step 3: Configuration

# .actrc — Default settings
-P ubuntu-latest=catthehacker/ubuntu:act-latest
--env-file .env

Step 4: Debug

act -n    # dry run
act -v    # verbose
act -l    # list workflows

Guidelines

  • First run downloads Docker images (~1-3GB).
  • Not all GitHub Actions features work locally (e.g., OIDC tokens).
  • Use micro images for faster runs.
  • Great for iterating on CI without waiting for GitHub runners.

terminalskills/skills/tree/main/skills/act commit b65238ea89

Frequently asked questions

npx skillmds@latest add terminalskills/act