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GitHub Actions Hackathon 2021 Help Thread

If you're participating in the GitHub Actions Hackathon and you need some help with your submission, this is the place to be!

If you have any questions about how this hackathon works (ex: due dates, how to post your submission, picking a category, etc.) the DEV team will be available to help out.

If you are running into issues or get stuck when it comes to GitHub Actions and workflows, @blackgirlbytes and @mishmanners from team GitHub will be closely monitoring this thread. Be sure to tag them if you need any GitHub guidance.

Please comment below if you need asynchronous assistance with the GitHub Actions Hackathon 2021!

If you'd like to share an update on the progress you're making on your project or if you'd like to connect with other participants, please do so in the community update thread!

Latest comments (74)

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codewithpom profile image
Padmashree Jha

@blackgirlbytes how shall we get the swags now and happy new year 😀

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codewithpom profile image
Padmashree Jha

How shall we now get the sticker pack.

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oz9un profile image
oz9un

Hello @blackgirlbytes, @mishmanners and all participants! Thank you for organizing such a stimulating event. I've learned so many things about GitHub Actions in the last few days that I can't count.

I developed a Developers' Collaborative Playlist with using GitHub Actions and documented it:

I also referenced to my GitHub repository in this dev article. Is there anything else I need to do to participate in the competition?

Lastly, are we allowed to keep developing our project after the hackathon's deadline?
Even now, my project has been used by many people and I received excellent feedbacks and I made some fixes about that. Can I continue to do this after the competition is over? Or should we not touch the projects and stop to commit after the competition deadline?

Thanks for this amazing contest again!

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mishmanners profile image
Michelle Mannering

Love this! And definitely keep developing the project after the hackathon ❤️

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blackgirlbytes profile image
Rizèl Scarlett

Hey @oz9un ! Awesome project. As long as you've done the steps below you should be all set:

  • Document your project journey along the way with the #ActionsHackathon21 tag.
  • Submit your project as a DEV post by filling out this template to share your workflow/s (.yml) and/or code repository.
  • Please make sure the project links to the appropriate GitHub Actions repository, and includes an open source license and README.

You can continue to work on your project after submitting!

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paxf3e profile image
Pallav Saxena • Edited

Hello, I wanted to enquire, is it possible for anyone from the Dev/Organising Team to please check if I have made my submission for the hackathon correctly?
dev.to/paxf3e/deploy-to-heroku-by-...
This is the link to my submission

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blackgirlbytes profile image
Rizèl Scarlett

They look eligible to me! Great work!

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0vortex profile image
TED Vortex (Teodor Eugen Duțulescu)

awesome, thank you for the quick reply!

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cerchie profile image
Lucia Cerchie

Here's my submission, thanks for the help! dev.to/cerchie/marvel-ize-your-rep...

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anthonyalvarez profile image
Anthony E. Alvarez • Edited

Hello, Is there a simple example of how to combine two github actions from the Marketplace using the same runner in sequence and parallel? Thank you.

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jyotikm29 profile image
JyotiKM29

Hey ! I am new there , I just know About Github Action, Can I also participate in it.

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thomasbnt profile image
Thomas Bnt ☕

Hello, I have a question. GitHub Actions can create and/or edit a comment ?

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Sloan, the sloth mascot
Comment deleted
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blackgirlbytes profile image
Rizèl Scarlett • Edited

Hi @geopjr ! Apologies that you're having this issue. I will try to flag your issue to the right group. The good news is you don't have to publish your action to the marketplace to participate in the Hackathon. In the rules outlined, here's all you need to do:

  • Document your project journey along the way with the #ActionsHackathon21 tag.
  • Submit your project as a DEV post by filling out this template to share your workflow/s (.yml) and/or code repository.
  • Please make sure the project links to the appropriate GitHub Actions repository, and includes an open source license and README.

Review these guidelines for more info: dev.to/devteam/join-us-for-the-202...

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anthonyalvarez profile image
Anthony E. Alvarez

Hello Rizèl,

Can the code and github actions YAML files be the same repository or should there be two separate repos?

Will the Github Actions Hackathon project DEV post be publicly available and searchable at this website immediately after submission?

Please advise.
Thank you. Regards.

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mishmanners profile image
Michelle Mannering

Can be the same repo. Just make sure publicly available and link it into your DEV post. Hope you went well with the submission ❤️

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anthonyalvarez profile image
Anthony E. Alvarez

Hello from New York City!

My GitHub Actions Hackathon 2021 was completed on time.
Another DEV.to community member noted a typo in my post.
If my post is edited to correct the typo, will the post's time stamp be updated and possibly disqualify my hackathon submission?

Thank you.

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anthonyalvarez profile image
Anthony E. Alvarez

Hello from New York City,

When there are multiple YAML files for Github Actions, what determines the sequence of which YAML file is to run first, second, third and so on? Is it advisable to put all actions in a single YML file?

Thank you..

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blackgirlbytes profile image
Rizèl Scarlett

Hey @anthonyalvarez , I would advise you to put them into a single file. There's nothing that determines the sequence across multiple file. I don't know your exact use case, but maybe reusable workflows would be helpful here. You can find out more about reusable workflows at this link: dev.to/github/github-actions-you-c...

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anthonyalvarez profile image
Anthony E. Alvarez

Hello from New York City,

This is my first attempt to make a Github Action but have some questions about Github actions for local development and testing.

  1. Can Github actions be created in a dev branch on a local repo on my PC and then uploaded to Github.com website?

  2. Can the Github actions be tested on a dev branch on the Github.com website?

  3. Finally can the Github actions in dev be merged into the master branch or is it best to create Action files on master branch using Github c.com website and avoid using dev branches and eventually merging with master?

Thank you.

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blackgirlbytes profile image
Rizèl Scarlett

Hi Anthony!!! Happy to answer these questions.

  1. Yes, you can create actions locally and then upload them to GitHub.com
  2. Yes, you can test them on a dev branch on GitHub.com
  3. You can treat GitHub Actions the same way you would treat your code. Feel free to add it to a dev branch and then merge it to your default branch afterwards.

Here's a reference on how to build your first workflow: dev.to/github/github-actions-build...

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stphnwlsh profile image
Stephen Walsh

How do you check if your entry is valid?
dev.to/stphnwlsh/dotnet-outdated-i...
I put something together but will it be rejected if it's not in the right format?

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blackgirlbytes profile image
Rizèl Scarlett

As long as it's leveraging an existing action, it's valid. I gave it a quick once over, and it looks great to me!

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stphnwlsh profile image
Stephen Walsh

Thanks!!!

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simeydk profile image
Simey de Klerk

Hi @graciegregory & friends
This is an awesome idea!
I contributed a github action to "lint" Podcast transcripts to the Changelog podcast, and wrote a blog post about it on the Changelog blog. Can I repurpose that here? Would it be a valid submission?

Link on the changelog blog:
changelog.com/posts/auto-improved-...

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mishmanners profile image
Michelle Mannering

If you created a new action or workflow, then definitely feel free to include 😄

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shehab7osny profile image
Shehab Hosny

Hi @blackgirlbytes and @mishmanners

I have a technical question regarding GitHub Actions.

Is it applicable to cache checkout actions?
I mean, if I use multiple workflows that do require to checkout my repository, should I apply the same process each and every time I execute any of these workflows or does the cache action provide any alternative?

I know that caching the checkout isn't the right approach as we do need a new and clean version of the repository after each and every commit, but I also do think that cloning the same repository at each workflow is a little bit time consuming and doesn't make sense. So, what I'm really searching for is a way to only apply checkout once across multiple workflows and load the checkout out directory whenever needed.

I did some research on this topic but I found nothing except this unanswered discussion:
github.com/actions/checkout/discus...

Any help would be appreciated...

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blackgirlbytes profile image
Rizèl Scarlett • Edited

Hey @shehab7osny ! @mishmanners and I did a bit of research, and it looks like for the source code itself we would generally recommend the checkout is most appropriate. By default, it only pulls the latest commit rather than full history so the amount of data being transferred is already reasonably low. You can save significant time by enabling dependency caching when setting up your environment (such as Node or Python). See the relevant setup action (such as github.blog/changelog/2021-07-02-g...) and look for the ‘cache:’ attribute.

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mishmanners profile image
Michelle Mannering

I'm checking in on this and will be back to you soon 😄

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shehab7osny profile image
Shehab Hosny

Thank you a lot Michelle for your efforts! Take your time 😄

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mishmanners profile image
Michelle Mannering

See @blackgirlbytes ' amazing response from our team above 😄

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shehab7osny profile image
Shehab Hosny

Many thanks for you @mishmanners and @blackgirlbytes ! Much appreciated... I didn't know that actions/checkout@v2 only pulls the latest commit rather than full history. This will definitely help! However, I'm building a C++ project with a varying customizable environment. So, it wouldn't be easy to cache the whole environment, but I will give it a shot anyways. One more time, thank you a lot for the help 😊