Having some issues with deprecated "set-output" using Github Files and this action

[william-mcdaniels]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
We use this action to output vars to other parts of our workflow, but we are having difficulty getting this action to output when switching from the current usage to the new format.

Here is the current excerpt from a workflow where we use this action. The issue is when we try to change the last line to the new format, removing "set-output". We suspect that since it's embedded inside of Node.js that it doesn't like being flipped around.

steps:
  - name: "Filter workspace"
    id: filter_workspace
    uses: actions/github-script@v3
    with:
      github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      script: |
        var command = '${{ github.event.inputs.TERRAFORM_COMMAND }}'
        var execute = false 
        if (command != 'no-op') {
          var workspace = '${{ matrix.workspace }}'
          execute = true
          var filter = '${{ github.event.inputs.WORKSPACE_FILTER }}'
          if (filter.trim().length > 0) {
            var filter_array = '${{ github.event.inputs.WORKSPACE_FILTER }}'.split(',').map(function(item) {
              return item.trim()
            })
            if (filter_array.length > 0) {
              execute = false
              if (filter_array.includes(workspace)) {
                execute = true
              }
            }
          }
        }
        console.log("::set-output name=execute::" + execute)

Here is the github documentation suggesting refactor of the set-output command.

https://github.blog/changelog/2022-10-11-github-actions-deprecating-save-state-and-set-output-commands/

Is there a recommended way to change this set-output command that will still work with your action? Does your action support Python? Are you aware of any that do? I know that I have not provided much more of a code reference, but it is not a public repository. What I can say is that the

[joshmgross]

Is there a recommended way to change this set-output command that will still work with your action?

👋 This action includes @actions/core, which you can use to set outputs:

setOutput

For your example, it would look like:

- console.log("::set-output name=execute::" + execute)
+ core.setOutput("execute", execute)

Internally, setOutput handles writing to the GITHUB_OUTPUT file for you - https://github.com/actions/toolkit/blob/457303960f03375db6f033e214b9f90d79c3fe5c/packages/core/src/core.ts#L192-L200.

actions/github-script@v3 will include the correct version of @actions/core, since it was backported in #348

Does your action support Python? Are you aware of any that do?

You could write a python script and execute it directly in a run step. I'm not super familiar with Python, but I think this is roughly equivalent:

import os

command = os.environ['TERRAFORM_COMMAND']
execute = False
if (command != 'no-op'):
  workspace = os.environ['WORKSPACE']
  execute = True
  workspace_filter = os.environ['WORKSPACE_FILTER']
  if (len(workspace_filter.strip()) > 0):
    filter_array = list(map(str.strip, workspace_filter.split(',')))
    if (len(filter_array) > 0):
      execute = workspace in filter_array

output_file = open(os.environ['GITHUB_OUTPUT'], 'a')
output_file.write(f'execute={str(execute).lower()}\n')
output_file.close()

If this is on a self-hosted runner, you'd also want to ensure Python is installed - https://github.com/actions/setup-python

For inputs and outputs, we can set them as env variables on the run step:

steps:
  - name: "Filter workspace"
    id: filter_workspace
    run: python script.py
    env:
      TERRAFORM_COMMAND: ${{ github.event.inputs.TERRAFORM_COMMAND }}
      WORKSPACE: ${{ matrix.workspace }}
      WORKSPACE_FILTER: ${{ github.event.inputs.WORKSPACE_FILTER }}

GITHUB_OUTPUT should already be available in the step's environment.

[william-mcdaniels]

Thanks! I will give this a try and let you know how it works for me (the setOutput change)

[william-mcdaniels]

core.setOutput worked beautifully. Thanks again :)