actions

You can now use setup-java v2 to download and cache binaries from different distributions, including Adopt OpenJDK and Zulu OpenJDK.

With setup-java v2, you can:

• Add Java distributions of your choice
• Get native support for Adopt OpenJDK
• Reduce your Java setup time significantly as the action can utilize pre-cached Adopt OpenJDK distributions from GitHub-hosted runner images

As part of the v2 release, setup-java now requires a mandatory distribution argument and no longer supports legacy Java version syntax 1.x. You can use our migration guide to learn more about upgrading to v2.

steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
- uses: actions/setup-java@v2
  with:
    distribution: 'adopt'
    java-version: '11'
- run: java -cp java HelloWorldApp

For questions, visit the setup-java repo and GitHub Actions community

The Audit Log now includes events associated with GitHub Actions workflow runs. This data provides enterprise customers with a greatly expanded data set for security and compliance audits.

New events will be incorporated into the audit log when:

• A workflow run is created, completed, deleted, or re-run
• A workflow job is prepared. Importantly, this job will include the list of secrets that were provided to the runner
• A self-hosted runner’s version is updated

These new events are only available to customers on the Enterprise plan. All events are available in the REST API, and all events except for workflow run created, workflow run completed, and workflow job prepared are available in the UI and exports.

Learn more about Audit Log events

For questions please visit the GitHub Actions community forum

To see what’s next for GitHub Actions, visit our public roadmap.

The API for environments, and environment protection rules is now available. The API enables you to automate scenarios like creating an environment or approving a deployment.

Learn more about the Environments API
Learn more about the GitHub Actions API

For questions visit the GitHub Actions community

You can now limit which branches can deploy to an environment using Environment protection rules.

When a job tries to deploy to an environment with Deployment branches configured Actions will check the value of github.ref against the configuration and if it does not match the job will fail and the run will stop.

The Deployment branches rule can be configured to allow:

1. All branches – Any branch in the repository can deploy

2. Protected branches – Only branches with protection rules

3. Selected branches – Branches matching a set of name patterns

   

Learn more about Environment protection rules

For questions, visit the GitHub Actions community

To see what's next for Actions, visit our public roadmap

GitHub Actions now supports skipping push and pull_request workflows by looking for some common keywords in your commit message.

If any commit message in your push or the HEAD commit of your PR contains the strings [skip ci], [ci skip], [no ci], [skip actions], or [actions skip] workflows triggered on the push or pull_request events will be skipped.

For questions, visit the GitHub Actions community

To see what's next for Actions, visit our public roadmap

Beginning March 1, 2021, we will remove .NET Core 3.0 from macOS 10.15, Ubuntu 16.04, and Ubuntu 18.04 virtual environments for GitHub-hosted runners. We follow a general guideline of removing software tools from our hosted images six months after they are deprecated, and .NET Core 3.0 reached its end of life on March 3, 2020.

You can continue to use .NET Core 3.0 with our setup-dotnet action. The setup-dotnet action is always the recommended way of using .NET with GitHub Actions because it ensures consistent behavior across different runners or versions of .NET and protects your workflow from possible future deprecation of additional .NET versions:

steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@main
- uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
  with:
    dotnet-version: '3.0.x'
- run: dotnet build <my project>

For the latest updates, be sure to subscribe to the announcement in the actions/virtual-environments repository.

On February 15th, GitHub Actions will remove support for referencing actions using the shortened version of a git commit SHA. This may cause some workflows in your repository to break. To fix these workflows, you will need to update the action reference to use the full commit SHA.

For example, if your workflow references actions/checkout@5a4ac90, you should change it to actions/checkout@5a4ac9002d0be2fb38bd78e4b4dbde5606d7042f. You can find the full commit SHA in the referenced action's repository.

This change is being made to align product functionality with our published security guidance

Today we are releasing an open beta for the new continuous delivery capabilities in GitHub Actions. In this open beta there is no need to sign up, all existing GitHub organizations and accounts can use the new capabilities in their public repositories and GitHub Enterprise Cloud organizations can use them in all repositories.

The addition of environment protection rules and environment secrets enable separation of concerns between deployment and development to meet compliance and security requirements. The required reviewers environment protection rule will automatically pause a job trying to deploy to the protected environment and notifies the reviewers. Once approved, the job runs and is given secured access to the environment’s secrets. Also, the environments page includes a deployment log and information on the latest code change deployed to each environment.

Learn more about environments

For questions, visit the GitHub Actions community

To see what's next for Actions, visit our public roadmap

GitHub Actions can now generate a visual graph of your workflow on every run. With workflow visualization, you can

• view and understand complex workflows
• track progress of workflows in real-time
• troubleshoot runs quickly by easily accessing logs and jobs metadata
• monitor progress of deployment jobs and easily access deployment targets

Workflow visualization for GitHub Actions is now available in a public beta. To view a visual graph of your workflow, simply navigate to the workflow home page and select the run for which you will like to see the graph.

For questions, visit the GitHub Actions community

To see what's next for Actions, visit our public roadmap

Workflows using the ubuntu-latest runner label will soon run on Ubuntu-20.04. GitHub Actions has supported Ubuntu-20.04 in preview mode since June 2. During these past four months we have monitored image stability and customer feedback, and waited for a range of critical software tools to improve support for Ubuntu-20.04.

Now Ubuntu-20.04 is ready to be the default version for the ubuntu-latest label in GitHub Actions workflows. This change will be rolled out over a period of several weeks beginning on November 30, 2020.

If you see any issues with your workflows when they are transitioned to Ubuntu-20.04:

• File an issue in the virtual-environments repository
• Switch back to Ubuntu 18.04 by specifying the ubuntu-18.04 runner label. We will continue to support Ubuntu 18.04.

Note that image software between Ubuntu-18.04 and Ubuntu-20.04 differs by the pre-installed and default versions versions of some tools. See the full list of changed software.

macOS Big Sur, or 11.0, is now available in preview for GitHub Actions. Try it by setting runs-on: macos-11.0 in your workflow file.

The MacOS 11.0 Big Sur virtual environment has different tools and tool versions than MacOS 10.15 Catalina. See the full list of changed software.

If you see any issues with your workflows when using Big Sur create an issue in the virtual-environments repository.