github-actions-validator

Quick tool to validate workflows and actions in .github directory

Checks

See the checks that are performed on all the workflow and action files. These are separate into errors and warnings. Each check has a code where as one starting with E indicates an error, N indicates a warning about invalid naming convention and, finally W is any other warning. Additionally, code will contain either A if it is an action where the issue is found, and W if issue occurs in a workflow.

Errors

Code	Description
EA809	Called step with id '%s' does not exist
EA811	Called step with id '%s' output '%s' does not exist
EW203	Job '%s' has invalid value '%s' in 'needs' field
EW201	Called variable '%s' is invalid
EW202	Called input '%s' does not exist
EW203	Job '%s' has invalid value '%s' in 'needs' field
EW801	Path to external action '%s' is invalid
EW802	Path to local action '%s' is invalid
EW803	Call to non-existing local action '%s'
EW804	Required input '%s' missing for local action '%s'
EW805	Input '%s' does not exist in local action '%s'
EW806	Required input '%s' missing for external action '%s'
EW807	Input '%s' does not exist in external action '%s'
EW808	Call to non-existing external action '%s'
EW809	Called step with id '%s' does not exist
EW810	Called step with id '%s' does not exist
EW811	Called step with id '%s' output '%s' does not exist
EW254	Called variable '%s' does not exist in provided list of available vars (when -z provided)
EW255	Called secret '%s' does not exist in provided list of available secrets (when -s provided)

Warnings

Code	Description
WW101	Called env var '%s' not found in global, job or step 'env' block - check it
WW201	Called var '%s' may not need to be in double quotes

Naming convention warnings

Code	Description
NA101	Action directory name should contain lowercase alphanumeric characters and hyphens only
NA102	Action file name should have .yml extension
NA103	Action name is empty
NA104	Action description is empty
NA301	Action input name should contain lowercase alphanumeric characters and hyphens only
NA302	Action input must have a description
NA501	Action output name should contain lowercase alphanumeric characters and hyphens only
NA502	Action output must have a description
NW101	Workflow file name should contain alphanumeric characters and hyphens only
NW102	Workflow file name should have .yml extension
NW103	Env variable name '%s' should contain uppercase alphanumeric characters and underscore only
NW104	Workflow name is empty
NW106	When workflow has only one job, it should be named 'main'
NW107	Called variable name '%s' should contain uppercase alphanumeric characters and underscore only
NW301	Workflow input name should contain lowercase alphanumeric characters and hyphens only
NW302	Workflow input must have a description
NW501	Workflow job name should contain lowercase alphanumeric characters and hyphens only
NW502	Env variable name '%s' should contain uppercase alphanumeric characters and underscore only
NW701	Env variable name '%s' should contain uppercase alphanumeric characters and underscore only

Building

Run go build -o github-actions-validator to compile the binary.

Building docker image

To build the docker image, use the following command.

docker build -t github-actions-validator .

Running

Check below help message for validate command:

Usage:  github-actions-validator validate [FLAGS]

Runs the validation on files from a specified directory

Required flags: 
  -p,	 --path  	Path to .github directory

Optional flags: 
  -s,	 --secrets-file  	Check if secret names exist in this file (one per line)
  -z,	 --vars-file  		Check if variable names exist in this file (one per line)

Use -p argument to point to .github directories. The tool will search for any actions in the actions directory, where each action is in its own sub-directory and its filename is either action.yaml or action.yml. And, it will search for workflows' *.yml and *.yaml files in workflows directory.

Additionally, all the variable names (meaning ${{ var.NAME }}) as well as secrets (${{ secret.NAME }}) in the workflow can be checked against a list of possible names. Use -z and -s arguments with paths to files containing a list of possible variable or secret names, with names being separated by new line or space.

Example of checking secrets

% cat ~/secrets-list.txt 
MY_SECRET_1
MY_SECRET_2
% ./github-actions-validator validate -p /path/to/.github -s ~/secrets-list.txt | grep '^EW25'
EW255: workflow my-workflow.yml                              Called secret 'GITHUB_TOKEN' does not exist in provided list of available secrets

Using docker image

Note that the image has to be present, either built or pulled from the registry. Replace path to the .github directory.

docker run --rm --name tmp-gha-validator \
  -v /Users/me/my-repo/.github:/dot-github \
  github-actions-validator \
  validate -p /dot-github

Exit code

Currently, tool always exit with code 0. To check if there are any errors, please use grep to filter the output for errors.