Reusable workflow

[severinbratus]

1. Make the core workflow reusable (callable)
   Introduce a caller workflow pointing to the callable workflow file in the TeachBooks template (at the main branch).
   This is the reason the pipeline is failing, since it is attempting to call a workflow that is not there.

2. Log the "cleaned" name in the form:

feat/dummy -> feat-dummy
main -> main
second -> second

This happens in job get-branches, step set-branches. This may however be somewhat inconvenient for the users.
We could create another job, or list these in the 404 page. EDIT: this is to be resolved in another PR

Closes #20

[sheepmax]

So essentially we just have people reference the template instead of make a copy of it?

[Tom-van-Woudenberg]

So essentially we just have people reference the template instead of make a copy of it?

Copy the template as a template and/or referencing the GitHub actions yml

[Tom-van-Woudenberg]

I tested it in the sandbox (with adapted branch), but the deploy-books steps seems to fail: https://github.com/TeachBooks/Sandbox/actions/runs/8684188935/job/23811416749. @severinbratus could you look into that?

Two futher small things below, but you can merge it without those and treat those as issues seperately

Another major thing:
I think it's better to include this workflow in a repo on its own. The template repository is used not only for providing the github workflow, but also with some book-configurations ready. Or do you have other ideas about this @severinbratus? If you agree, you can delete the deploy-book-ghpages.yml here, add it in a seperate repo in TeachBooks and adapt the reference URL

About the logging, it's a bit hidden in the steps. Would it be possible to have it displayed somewhere on the main page of an action (a page like this; https://github.com/TeachBooks/Sandbox/actions/runs/8685977352) Might this be a solution: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-workflows/workflow-commands-for-github-actions#adding-a-job-summary. That seems useful: https://github.blog/2022-05-09-supercharging-github-actions-with-job-summaries/. You could even include a nice representation of the configuration variables so that it's perfectly clear how it is deployed. This can also be treated as a seperate issue later on

[severinbratus]

I tested it in the sandbox (with adapted branch), but the deploy-books steps seems to fail: https://github.com/TeachBooks/Sandbox/actions/runs/8684188935/job/23811416749. @severinbratus could you look into that?

Will do.

Another major thing: I think it's better to include this workflow in a repo on its own. The template repository is used not only for providing the github workflow, but also with some book-configurations ready. Or do you have other ideas about this @severinbratus? If you agree, you can delete the deploy-book-ghpages.yml here, add it in a seperate repo in TeachBooks and adapt the reference URL

I have thought of this, and now I agree -- this would be less confusing.

And a final thing, it's not clear to me what 'logging' now means, where is it visible?

I meant the GitHub Actions workflow log, e.g. here under Set branches https://github.com/TeachBooks/Sandbox/actions/runs/8684188935/job/23811352889 I think the way of making a 404 listing available book versions is better than making the users search the names up in the logs, so what I have done is just a first step.

[Tom-van-Woudenberg]

And a final thing, it's not clear to me what 'logging' now means, where is it visible?

I meant the GitHub Actions workflow log, e.g. here under Set branches https://github.com/TeachBooks/Sandbox/actions/runs/8684188935/job/23811352889 I think the way of making a 404 listing available book versions is better than making the users search the names up in the logs, so what I have done is just a first step.

@severinbratus , I've updated my response on the logging, please see the original message now after a refresh of this page ;)

[severinbratus]

I agree, summaries seem great for this. I have updated issue TeachBooks/deploy-book-workflow#1 to specify it

[severinbratus]

@Tom-van-Woudenberg @rlanzafame The pipeline is failing now on the upload-pages-artifact action, as is the pipeline at Sandbox. So I strongly suspect that this is because of our use of symlinks for aliasing. It turns out the upload-pages-artifact disallows symbolic links, even though https://github.blog/changelog/2023-02-21-github-pages-deprecating-symlinks-in-non-actions-builds/ implied it was OK.

What this means for us, is I believe we will have to drop the aliasing feature, since symlinks work unpredictably now, and the people at GitHub in fact do not want them to work for security reasons (source: actions/upload-pages-artifact#51 (comment))

[Tom-van-Woudenberg]

@Tom-van-Woudenberg @rlanzafame The pipeline is failing now on the upload-pages-artifact action, as is the pipeline at Sandbox. So I strongly suspect that this is because of our use of symlinks for aliasing. It turns out the upload-pages-artifact disallows symbolic links, even though https://github.blog/changelog/2023-02-21-github-pages-deprecating-symlinks-in-non-actions-builds/ implied it was OK.

What this means for us, is I believe we will have to drop the aliasing feature, since symlinks work unpredictably now, and the people at GitHub in fact do not want them to work for security reasons (source: actions/upload-pages-artifact#51 (comment))

@severinbratus , but it worked before right? Why doesn't it work now? Here it works fine: https://github.com/TeachBooks/Sandbox_temp

[severinbratus]

@severinbratus , but it worked before right? Why doesn't it work now? Here it works fine: https://github.com/TeachBooks/Sandbox_temp

For now not able to say what the reason for this inconsistency is, but I suppose it's bugs on GitHub's side. Will debug further later this week

[Tom-van-Woudenberg]

@severinbratus , but it worked before right? Why doesn't it work now? Here it works fine: https://github.com/TeachBooks/Sandbox_temp

For now not able to say what the reason for this inconsistency is, but I suppose it's bugs on GitHub's side. Will debug further later this week

Could it be related to that the artifacts are not available because of the separation of those workflows? In sandbox_temp is didn't user the call workflow, just deploy. While in https://github.com/TeachBooks/Sandbox/actions/workflows/call-deploy-book.yml the call workflow never succeeded.

[severinbratus]

OK, I am sorry for the confusion - this was a bug in my code, fixed now. Beware however, that the upload-github-action README says (https://github.com/actions/upload-pages-artifact) no symlinks are allowed in the pages artifact, but somehow it works for us (not complaining). However if upload-github-action breaking becomes an issue down the road, we know where it is probably coming from