Run GitHub Actions Locally with the GitHub Local Actions Extension for VS Code

Testing your GitHub workflows no longer needs to involve endless commit and push cycles. With the GitHub Local Actions extension for Visual Studio Code, you can run your workflows right from your editor, powered by the nektos/act CLI.

🚀 Key Features:

Execute Workflows and Jobs: Easily run full workflows or individual jobs directly within VS Code.
Simulate GitHub Events: Trigger common GitHub events to initiate multiple workflows at once.
Track Workflow History: Review previous workflow runs and logs for easier troubleshooting.
Customize Execution: Configure secrets, variables, inputs, runners, event payloads, and execution settings to fit your local environment.

Why Run GitHub Actions Locally?

Running GitHub Actions locally offers major advantages, as highlighted by the nektos/act documentation:

⏳ Instant Feedback: Developers, especially those new to GitHub Actions, often push numerous test commits just to validate changes to workflow files. Running workflows locally eliminates this repetitive cycle, allowing much faster iteration and learning.
🛠️ Consistent Local Automation: By executing the same workflows you would run on GitHub, directly on your machine, you can automate tasks, maintain environment consistency, and accelerate your overall development workflow.

Install GitHub Local Actions VSC Extension

Launch VS Code Quick Open (Ctrl+P), paste the following command, and press enter.

ext install SanjulaGanepola.github-local-actions

Component Installation

1. nektos/act

Install for Arch Linux

pacman -Syu act

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nektos/act/master/install.sh | sudo bash

Install for macOS/Linux

brew install act

for installation on other platforms like Windows check documentation from Links section below

2. Docker Engine

To pull Docker images and run Docker containers, you need the Docker Engine. The Docker Engine includes a daemon to manage the containers, as well as the docker CLI frontend.

Install Docker EngineDocker Documentation

Starting Docker Engine

Before running any workflows, you should ensure the Docker Engine appears as Running in the Components view. If it is Not Running, you can use the Start action to launch Docker Desktop for Windows and MacOS. For Linux, a VS Code task will be launched to start the docker daemon using the command:

systemctl start docker

Workflows

Run Single Workflow

If you would like to run just a single workflow, locate the workflow in the Workflows view and use the Run Workflow action. This action behaves similar to the previous one, except it will only start a VS Code task and create a history entry for the selected workflow.

Run All Workflows

To simply run all workflows in the workspace, use the Run All Workflows action on the Workflows view. This will start up individual VS Code tasks for each workflow defined in your .github/workflows folder and create separate entries in the History view.

Run Event

GitHub events are used to configure workflows to run when specific activities happen on GitHub. These same events can be simulated to run multiple workflows locally. To run an event, use the Run Event action on the Workflows view which will prompt you for the event to trigger. Individual VS Code tasks will be started and history entries will be created for each workflow in the workspace that is set to be triggered by that event.

Run Job

To run a specific job in a workflow, expand the workflow with the desired job in the Workflows view and use the Run Job action. This action will also only create a single VS Code task and one history entry for the executing job.

Settings

Secrets

Secrets of the format ${{ secrets.mySecret }} are extracted from all workflow files and shown in the Settings view. These secrets can be assigned a value using the Edit action and the values visibility can be toggled using the Show/Hide action. After assigning a value, it must also be checked so that it can be used during execution.

Example .secrets file:

export mySecret='my-secret-value'
PRIVATE_KEY="---...\nrandom text\n...---"
JSON="{\n\"name\": \"value\"\n}"
SOME_SECRET=SOME_SECRET_VALUE

Usage guide - act - User Guide | Manual | Docs | Documentation

Variables

Variables of the format ${{ secrets.myVariable }} are extracted from all workflow files and shown in the Settings view. These variables can be assigned a value using the Edit action just like secrets and must be checked for it to be used during execution. During execution, act will include them using the --var option which specifies the value for a variable (ie. --var myVariable=myValue).

If you have matching repository or environment variables defined in GitHub and would like to use the same values locally, you can use the Import from GitHub action to authenticate and load these values into the Settings view. You must ensure your GitHub account has the adequate authority to access these variables to use this action.

Similar to the secrets file, an alternative is to use the Create Variable File action to create a file for storing variable values (default file name is .vars). This file should also use the Ruby’s gem dotenv format as act uses the godotenv library to parse these types of files too.

Example .vars file:

export myVariable='my-variable-value'
JSON="{\n\"name\": \"value\"\n}"
SOME_VARIABLE=SOME_VARIABLE_VALUE

Although you can also use the Locate Variable Files to load in multiple existing files just like you can with secrets, you can only select one to be used for execution. Upon selecting one and running a GitHub Action, act will include it using the --var-file option which specifies the path to the variable file.

Usage guide - act - User Guide | Manual | Docs | Documentation

Runners

When running workflows in GitHub, virtual environments are used. For act to run workflows locally, it must run a container for the runner defined in your workflow file. There are several default images which act uses for this based on runner type and size.

The Edit action can be used in the Settings view to specify a different image for a runner. This will use the --platform option which specifies a custom image to use per platform (ie. --platform <platform>=<docker-image>).

Runners - act - User Guide | Manual | Docs | Documentation

Inputs

Payloads

History

History Output Logs

The history output for all entries are stored in log files on disk. These files are located in a folder allocated for the extension in VS Code’s global storage directory. Use the View Output action on any history entry to easily access any of these logs.