Toolkit: Runs Plugin: 'publish' - Undocumented Feature

[warrenbuckley]

The https://github.com/actions/upload-artifact repo action.yml contains the following:

https://github.com/actions/upload-artifact/blob/ec188c28d23c831d7283eb4280a4490eb5010092/action.yml#L11-L12

name: 'Upload artifact'
description: 'Publish files as workflow artifacts'
author: 'GitHub'
inputs: 
  name:
    description: 'Artifact name'
    required: true
  path:
    description: 'Directory containing files to upload'
    required: true
runs:
  plugin: 'publish'

So this leaves me to ask, what other things apart from running NodeJS & Docker Image/Container can we do as Action developers as mentioned in the documentation here - https://help.github.com/en/articles/metadata-syntax-for-github-actions#runs

/cc @chrispat & @damccorm

[damccorm]

That's actually intentional - plugins live on our Runner which isn't open sourced yet (though it will be). Basically, certain actions are (a) definitely needed to support the product/expected to be used in a large percentage of workflows, but (b) much easier to implement well directly on the Runner. So while we have this concept of a plugin for a small/select group of first party actions, this is not the path for creating future actions (unless there's a very clear and obvious need).

[warrenbuckley]

Thanks for the explanation. Will close this issue for now as its not intended for public consumption by action developers @damccorm

[svenstaro]

I think this should be re-opened and still be documented nonetheless. Otherwise there'll be more people confused by this.

[mark-rushakoff]

Agreed -- please at least put a comment in upload-artifact's action.yml, so that nobody else wastes 5-10 minutes trying to figure out what plugin: 'publish' is all about.

[damccorm]

It would feel a little weird to me to have docs saying "we don't support this", but I think a comment in the action.yml file makes sense.

Will add one in checkout, upload-artifact, and download-artifact, I think that's everywhere this is used.

[svenstaro]

That's good enough for me.

On Fri, 6 Sep 2019 at 15:55, Danny McCormick [e-mail]
wrote:

It would feel a little weird to me to have docs saying "we don't support
this", but I think a comment in the action.yml file makes sense.

Will add one in checkout, upload-artifact, and download-artifact, I think
that's everywhere this is used.

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