Why?

Tired of waiting for the 'Set up job' step to finish? This action caches the actions cache for self-hosted runners.

How?

Action runners already have the cache mechanism built-in. This action simply puts the files of the current actions script in that folder to avoid downloading it in the future.

Usage

1. Give the project a star! ⭐
2. Setup your self-hosted runner to use the cache. You must set env variable ACTIONS_RUNNER_ACTION_ARCHIVE_CACHE for the runner to a folder that is writeable.

Example, we use AutoscalingRunnerSet:

apiVersion: actions.github.com/v1alpha1
kind: AutoscalingRunnerSet
metadata:
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/component: "autoscaling-runner-set"
    actions.github.com/scale-set-name: cg-linux
    actions.github.com/scale-set-namespace: {{ .Release.Namespace }}
    {{- include "labels" . | nindent 4 }}
  name: gha-linux
  namespace: {{ .Release.Namespace }}
spec:
  githubConfigSecret: github-auth
  githubConfigUrl: 'https://github.com/Catglobe'
  maxRunners: 6
  minRunners: 6
  runnerGroup: default
  runnerScaleSetName: cg-linux
  template:
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: runner
        image: catglobe/gha-runner-linux:205
        env:
        - name: NUGET_PACKAGES
          value: "/opt/hostedtoolcache/nuget"
        - name: npm_config_cache
          value: "/opt/hostedtoolcache/npm"
        - name: RUNNER_TOOL_CACHE
          value: "/opt/hostedtoolcache/tool"
        - name: ACTIONS_RUNNER_ACTION_ARCHIVE_CACHE
          value: "/opt/hostedtoolcache/actions"
        - name: REPO_CACHE
          value: "/opt/hostedtoolcache/repo-cache"
        #- name: STARTUP_DELAY_IN_SECONDS
        #  value: "600"
        volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: /actions-runner/_work
          name: work
        - mountPath: /opt/hostedtoolcache
          name: cache
      initContainers:
      - name: mkdir
        image: alpine:3@sha256:a8560b36e8b8210634f77d9f7f9efd7ffa463e380b75e2e74aff4511df3ef88c
        command:
        - /bin/sh
        - -c
        - |
          mkdir -p /opt/hostedtoolcache/repo-cache && 
          mkdir -p /opt/hostedtoolcache/tool && 
          mkdir -p /opt/hostedtoolcache/nuget && 
          mkdir -p /opt/hostedtoolcache/npm && 
          mkdir -p /opt/hostedtoolcache/actions && 
          chmod 777 /opt/hostedtoolcache && 
          chmod 777 /opt/hostedtoolcache/repo-cache && 
          chmod 777 /opt/hostedtoolcache/tool && 
          chmod 777 /opt/hostedtoolcache/nuget && 
          chmod 777 /opt/hostedtoolcache/npm && 
          chmod 777 /opt/hostedtoolcache/actions
        volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: /opt/hostedtoolcache
          name: cache
        - mountPath: /actions-runner/_work
          name: work
      nodeSelector:
        kubernetes.io/os: linux
        gha-runner: "true"
      securityContext:
        fsGroup: 121
        fsGroupChangePolicy: "OnRootMismatch"
      volumes:
      - name: cache
        persistentVolumeClaim:
          claimName: github-cache-local-ssd
      - emptyDir: {}
        name: work

3. If you care about security, fork this repository. That prevents any attack vector from being introduced in the future.
4. Add this to all of your actions workflows:

jobs:
  MyFirstJob:
    runs-on: cg-linux # or whatever you named your runner
    ...
    steps:
    - name: Save actions cache
      uses: catglobe/save-actions-cache@v1
  OtherJob:
    runs-on: cg-linux # or whatever you named your runner
    ...
    steps:
    - name: Save actions cache
      uses: catglobe/save-actions-cache@v1
  PublicRunnerJob:
    #No runs-on: ==> don't add the step

Replace catglobe with your own company name or GitHub username if you made a fork.

If your work folder is not in /actions-runner/_work, you can set actionsFolder to your path (don't forget to append /actions):

    - name: Save actions cache
      uses: catglobe/save-actions-cache@v1
      with:
        actionsFolder: /my_custom_work_folder/actions

5. Profit! Set up job should take single digit seconds, not minutes.

How to check

Run your job in debug mode and check the logs. You should see something like this:

Download action repository 'actions/checkout@11bd71901bbe5b1630ceea73d27597364c9af683' (SHA:11bd71901bbe5b1630ceea73d27597364c9af683)
##[debug]Copied action archive '/opt/hostedtoolcache/actions/actions_checkout/11bd71901bbe5b1630ceea73d27597364c9af683.tar.gz' to '/actions-runner/_work/_actions/_temp_42fdacac-a721-4309-8fce-fb5f1ecef8d5/c30cfe66-109b-46ed-b245-25a6f6f36b8a.tar.gz'
##[debug]Unwrap 'actions-checkout-11bd719' to '/actions-runner/_work/_actions/actions/checkout/11bd71901bbe5b1630ceea73d27597364c9af683'
##[debug]Archive '/actions-runner/_work/_actions/_temp_42fdacac-a721-4309-8fce-fb5f1ecef8d5/c30cfe66-109b-46ed-b245-25a6f6f36b8a.tar.gz' has been unzipped into '/actions-runner/_work/_actions/actions/checkout/11bd71901bbe5b1630ceea73d27597364c9af683'.

License

MIT