GitHub action to run Molecule

GitHub action to run Molecule

GitHub Actions is an approach to offering CI, using other peoples actions from the GitHub Action Marketplace.

The intent is to let a developer of an Action think about ‘hard stuff’ and the user of an action simply include another step into a workflow.

So; I wrote a GitHub action to test an Ansible role with a single action.

Using the GitHub Action.

Have a look at the Molecule action.

It boils down to adding this snippet to .github/workflows/molecule.yml:

---
on:
  - push

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          path: "$"
      - name: molecule
        uses: buluma/molecule-action@master

How it works

You may want to write your own action, here is an overview of the required components.

+--- Repository with an Ansible role ---+
| - .github/workflows/molecule.yml      |
+-+-------------------------------------+
  |
  |    +-------- buluma/molecule-action --------+
  +--> | - image: buluma/github-action-molecule |
       +-+--------------------------------------------+
         |
         |    +--- github-action-molecule ---+
         +--> | - pip install molecule       |
              | - pip install tox            |
              +------------------------------+

1. Create a container

First create a container that has all tools installed you need and push it to Docker Hub. Here is the code for my container

2. Create an action

Create a GitHub repository per action. It should at least contain an action.yml. Have a look at the documentation for Actions.

3. Integrate your action

Pick a repository, and add a file (likely with the name of the action) in .gitlab/workflows/my_action.yml. The contents should refer to the action:

    steps:
      - name: checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          path: "$"
      - name: molecule
        uses: buluma/molecule-action@master
        with:
          image: $

A full example here.

The benefit is that you (or others) can reuse the action. Have fun making GitHub actions!