runner: INPUT_* environment variables are missing in composite actions

When authoring a composite action, inputs must be mapped into inner steps using GitHub Actions expressions.

For example, map into the script directly:

inputs:
  foo:
    description: 'Test input'
    required: yes
runs:
  using: composite
  steps:
    - run: |
        echo "FOO: ${{inputs.foo}}"
      shell: bash

Or for example, map into the script indirectly via env var:

inputs:
  foo:
    description: 'Test input'
    required: yes
runs:
  using: composite
  steps:
    - run: |
        echo "FOO: $MY_VAR"
      shell: bash
      env:
        MY_VAR: ${{ inputs.foo }}

Fair enough, but wouldn’t it be simpler to have the same behavior across all kinds of actions? Or is there a technical reason not to provide the INPUT_ environment variables?

We need to update the referenced doc

👋 I’ve been using a workaround like _ericsciple’s:

inputs:
  branches:
    description: 'Branches to update'
    required: false
runs:
  using: "composite"
  steps:
    - run: my-awesome-action.sh
      shell: bash
      env:
        INPUT_BRANCHES: ${{ inputs.branches }}

I want to map the variable as INPUT_BRANCHES so I can reuse getInput() from the Actions SDK in my implementation. Using ${{input.branches}} directly in the command doesn’t work (Actions SDK can’t find it).

I’d dig a way to say “please forward ALL my action.yml:inputs to this step” without mapping every key. env: actionInputs(), actionInputs: true? Forwarding them without special configuration is 👍 too, but changing the exposure of existing composite actions is, as noted, bad.

(I wound up here after adding an input and forgetting about needing this hack to forward it. ~10% of my current action.yaml is input forwarding boilerplate)

I’ve hit that as well.

After some thought I imagine it’s because if, in future, they enable composite steps to contain other uses actions (not just shell runs), this would cause confusion in those sub-actions which inputs are theirs, and which are the parent composite action’s.

Better documentation definitely will help there. 😃 edit I think it’s also important to include the inputs context in the Contexts documentation, because currently it’s not there.

The issue still exists but thanks to the above workaround, which works.

Wondering any updates or plans on this?

I seem to have stumbled on another corner case in an action.

The inputs.xyz seem to disappear after a step that uses a with:, they (inputs.) are no longer available for other steps.

ci.yaml. (steps: uses action1 passing inputs in with:) action1.yaml ( halfway through uses action2 passing inputs in with:) after this step in action1.yaml all the input.xyz seem to be empty.

Work around by adding all to env. echo "password=${{ inputs.password }}" |tee -a $GITHUB_ENV

It is, thank you.

@burner1024: The doc now mentions this. I’m not sure if that’s any actual comfort.

Speaking as someone with a fairly large number of them, this is moderately annoying: https://github.com/check-spelling/check-spelling/blob/5c726fe37eed6f0ed3aba58fc418ca2c0edfbbf9/action.yml#L168-L189

What the… A year, and not only it’s not recognized as a bug, even the doc is not updated to help people in the meatime.