toolkit/docs/commands.md

:: Commands

The core toolkit package offers a number of convenience functions for setting results, logging, registering secrets and exporting variables across actions. Sometimes, however, its useful to be able to do these things in a script or other tool.

To allow this, we provide a special :: syntax which, if logged to stdout on a new line, will allow the runner to perform special behavior on your commands. The following commands are all supported:

Set an environment variable

To set an environment variable for future out of process steps, use ::set-env:

echo ::set-env name=FOO::BAR

Running $FOO in a future step will now return BAR

This is wrapped by the core exportVariable method which sets for future steps but also updates the variable for this step

export function exportVariable(name: string, val: string): void {}

PATH Manipulation

To prepend a string to PATH, use ::addPath:

echo ::add-path::BAR

Running $PATH in a future step will now return BAR:{Previous Path};

This is wrapped by the core addPath method:

export function addPath(inputPath: string): void {}

Set outputs

To set an output for the step, use ::set-output:

echo ::set-output name=FOO::BAR

Running steps.[step-id].outputs.FOO in your Yaml will now give you BAR

steps:
  - name: Set the value
    id: step_one
    run: echo ::set-output name=FOO::BAR
  - name: Use it
    run: echo ${{ steps.step_one.outputs.FOO }}

This is wrapped by the core setOutput method:

export function setOutput(name: string, value: string): void {}

Register a secret

If a script or action does work to create a secret at runtime, it can be registered with the runner to be masked in logs.

To mask a value in the logs, use ::add-mask:

echo ::add-mask::mysecretvalue

This is wrapped by the core setSecret method

function setSecret(secret: string): void {}

Now, future logs containing BAR will be masked. E.g. running echo "Hello FOO BAR World" will now print Hello FOO **** World.

CAUTION: Do not mask short values if you can avoid it, it could render your output unreadable (and future steps' output as well). For example, if you mask the letter l, running echo "Hello FOO BAR World" will now print He*********o FOO BAR Wor****d

Group and Ungroup Log Lines

Emitting a group with a title will instruct the logs to create a collapsable region up to the next ungroup command.

echo ::group::my title   
echo ::endgroup::

This is wrapped by the core methods:

function startGroup(name: string): void {}
function endGroup(): void {}

Log Level

Finally, there are several commands to emit different levels of log output:

log level	example usage
debug	echo ::debug::My debug message
warning	echo ::warning::My warning message
error	echo ::error::My error message