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!
Oldest comments (74)
If anyone has questions, I'm happy to help!
Will it be solo or team work(4 members)base hackathon?
Same question for me as well. Up!!
Hey @star_trooper and @riocantre , solo entries are allowed and so are group entries. I believe the preference is to keep it under 4 members per team. You can learn more about the hackathon rules at this link: dev.to/page/official-hackathon-rules
Thanks 👍
Thank you!
Really excited for this Hackathon 🚀🔥
But where can I register for this hackathon?
looks like if you follow the submission rules here you should be good, but I'd definitely also wait on an offical DEV.to rep to answer as well dev.to/devteam/join-us-for-the-202...
Ok so we don't have to register by filling any form to participate just like other hackathon . Just write a post on Devto before 8 December with the given submission template right!
Yep, you're right @cerchie by following the submission rules outlined in the doc, you should be good to go. No need to register for the hackathon. Only a submission is needed.
Ok Thanks 👍
Hey, new to Github Actions here! Curious about what it means to use an action in a workflow. Can you link to good examples and blog posts so I can start cooking up ideas?
@cerchie highly recommend you check out this blog from @blackgirlbytes ! 😊
Thanks Gracie!!! @cerchie you can also check out these two blog posts:
docs.github.com/en/actions/learn-g...,
damienaicheh.github.io/github/acti...
Thank you Rizel!!
Thank you!
Hey, I've curated this list of resources on GitHub actions, Check it out😊
twitter.com/coderlens/status/14597...
ok this is awesome thank you!
This is great, Lenin! Thank you!
can someone share the link of registration ?
Hi @sathyapriyaasketch ! There's no registration form. You just have to submit your entry before December 8th by following the Hackathon rules outlined here: dev.to/devteam/join-us-for-the-202...
Can we submit the workflow which was made a few months back?
This hackathon is about leveraging existing Actions. If you created a workflow a few months back, then it's an existing Action.
I'd recommend building on this existing Action you already created and submitting that along with your blog post. You could mention why you created the existing Action, and then how you built on that during this hackathon.
Good luck ❤️
Are multiple submissions allowed??
Yes, multiple submissions are allowed!
As this year's theme is leveraging existing workflows does it mean that I can tweak an existing worflow and submit it ?even if it's small changes,would it be counted as a valid submission ?
Hi, yes! You can use and tweak and existing workflow for submission. You can also gain some inspiration from this video regarding creating reusable workflows: youtube.com/watch?v=lRypYtmbKMs
Here to help if people need!
What's the difference between the sections "My Workflow" and "Yaml File or Link to Code" in the submission post? It's not clear for me.
They are both the same. In your submission, I would recommend linking to your entire repository so we can see your license and README file, and separately linking to your workflow/yaml file so everyone can see the amazing Action/workflow you build 😄
Do existing blog post and workflow (just made ond in August matching the contest) count ? Or should I write another blog post ?
I'm copying and pasting @mishmanners answer right here because I think it was a great one!!!
"This hackathon is about leveraging existing Actions. If you created a workflow a few months back, then it's an existing Action.
I'd recommend building on this existing Action you already created and submitting that along with your blog post. You could mention why you created the existing Action, and then how you built on that during this hackathon.
Good luck ❤️"
Only new blog posts will be accepted. We are also encouraging people to create new workflows from existing Actions.
@blackgirlbytes Do you have any example for any workflow library.
you can also check out these three blog posts:
dev.to/github/github-actions-build...,
docs.github.com/en/actions/learn-g...,
damienaicheh.github.io/github/acti...
If I have an existing workflow which is helpful to others, is that an ok starting point, or do I need to start from scratch to be elligible?
github.com/check-spelling/spell-ch...
Hi there! See Michelle's response to a similar question here 😃 dev.to/mishmanners/comment/1jji1
Hi @blackgirlbytes and @mishmanners
First of all, thank you a lot for organizing such a great hackathon, I really do appreciate it!
Okay so now I have a doubt regarding the hackathon, the following paragraph is mentioned in the original post:
For this year’s hackathon, we’re encouraging participants to utilize existing GitHub Actions to create workflows that make sense in the real world. While you are free to create a new Action, the emphasis of this contest is to create practical and interesting solutions other developers can utilize to solve problems with open source.
Does this mean that workflows that use actions/Any_Action in their jobs are preferred than others that use custom-made actions such as shehab7osny/Any_Action, right? or does it mean to stick to the Actions currently available on the GitHub Actions' marketplace without the need to develop new ones?
The idea is you'll need to either create an Action or workflow FROM an existing Action (preferred), or create a new Action entirely. Look at what's on the Actions marketplace and build on one of those. Don't forget to write a blog post about it 😄
Hi @mishmanners
Thank you a lot for replying! I beg your pardon, but I find the phrase
create an Action FROM an existing Actiona little bit conflicting with the phrase in the original postutilize existing GitHub Actions to create workflows. As in your comment, it is suggested to create an Action while in the original post it is suggested to create a Workflow.As the GitHub Actions Documentation states, Actions are “individual tasks that you can combine to create jobs and customize your workflow”. On the other hand, Workflows are “custom automated processes that you can set up in your repository to build, test, package, release, or deploy any project on GitHub”
So, am I supposed to create a Workflow from an existing Action or create an Action FROM an existing Action?
Thank you a lot for your help @blackgirlbytes and @mishmanners
I'm so sorry for any disturbance caused.
Feel free to create either one; an Action or a workflow. As long as it's new, and utilises an existing Action, and you write a blog post about it 😄
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...
I'm checking in on this and will be back to you soon 😄
Thank you a lot Michelle for your efforts! Take your time 😄
See @blackgirlbytes ' amazing response from our team above 😄
Many thanks for you @mishmanners and @blackgirlbytes ! Much appreciated... I didn't know that
actions/checkout@v2only 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 😊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.