GitHub Actions Testing & Validation

What problem does it solves? This Skill provides expert guidance for testing and validating GitHub Actions workflows before deployment, preventing common CI failures related to cache errors, path issues, monorepo dependencies, and service container problems that local testing often misses. It saves you from frustrating push-fail-fix-push cycles.

Core Features & Use Cases

• Pre-Push Validation: Guides you on using actionlint, yamllint, and custom scripts to validate workflows before pushing to GitHub, catching errors early.
• Common Failure Patterns: Identifies and provides fixes for issues like cache resolution errors, monorepo build order problems, and service container misconfigurations.
• Local Testing Limitations: Explains why tools like act alone aren't sufficient and how to use a complete validation suite for comprehensive checks.
• Use Case: When you're developing or modifying a complex CI/CD workflow, this skill helps you catch 90%+ of potential failures locally, saving you from frustrating push-fail-fix-push cycles and ensuring a robust, reliable pipeline.

Quick Start

Validate Workflows Before Push

1. Lint: actionlint .github/workflows/*.yml
2. Validate: .github/scripts/validate-workflows.sh
3. Dry Run: act pull_request -W .github/workflows/[workflow].yml -n