Actions Marketplace

Goal: Host a GitHub Actions Marketplace in your own organization, more info here.

This repo will check all repositories in the organization it sits in and write a actions-data.json to a new branch gh-pages.

Steps to get things working

• Follow best practices and fork any action you want to use in your organization to a specific organization hosting only actions.
• Keep the forks up to date using the github-fork-updater.
• Fork this repository over to the GitHub Actions Organization you created.
• Enable the get-action-data workflow in the forked repository.
• Configure GitHub Pages in your forked repository:
  1. Go to Settings → Pages
  2. Under "Build and deployment", set Source to: GitHub Actions (not "Deploy from a branch")
  3. The workflows will automatically deploy your marketplace site
• The marketplace will pull action data from the JSON file generated in the gh-pages branch and display your internal actions with search functionality.

Schedule runs

The scheduled runs are planned at weekdays, at 7 AM.

get-action-data.yml

The get-action-data will iterate all repositories in the same organization (or user) and find the ones that have actions in them by looking for an action.yml file in the root of the repository. The information from the action.yml file will be parsed and stored in a branch named gh-pages. On updating the file, GitHub Pages will be triggered to publish a new version of your website, with the latest data.

Note: This workflow can be triggered manually or will run on a schedule.

All Workflows Overview

This repository uses several GitHub Actions workflows for different purposes:

Core Workflows

1. get-action-data.yml - Action Data Collection

• Purpose: Scans organization repositories to find and catalog available GitHub Actions
• Schedule: Runs weekdays at 7 AM UTC (cron: 7 0 * * 1-5)
• Also triggers on: Push to main, manual workflow dispatch
• Output: Creates actions-data.json in gh-pages branch with metadata about all discovered actions
• Permissions: Requires contents: write to commit to gh-pages branch

2. sync-to-gh-pages.yml - Static File Management

• Purpose: Syncs website files (HTML, CSS, JS) from main to gh-pages branch
• Triggers on: Changes to index.html, script.js, style.css, or _includes/ in main branch
• Features:
  • Implements cache-busting with timestamp-based version parameters
  • Adds deployment metadata to HTML
  • Ensures .nojekyll file is present
• Permissions: Requires contents: write to push to gh-pages branch

3. jekyll-gh-pages.yml - GitHub Pages Deployment

• Purpose: Deploys the site to GitHub Pages using the Actions deployment method
• Triggers on: Any push to gh-pages branch, manual dispatch
• Process: Builds with Jekyll and deploys to Pages environment
• Permissions: Requires pages: write and id-token: write for deployment

Supporting Workflows

4. visual-test.yml - UI Testing

• Purpose: Captures visual screenshots of the marketplace UI for pull request review
• Triggers on: Pull requests that modify index.html, style.css, or script.js
• Output: Screenshots (desktop, mobile, tablet views) uploaded as workflow artifacts
• Note: Helps reviewers see UI changes before merging

5. get-action-usages.yml - Usage Analytics

• Purpose: Analyzes which actions are being used across the organization
• Triggers on: Push to used-actions branch, manual dispatch
• Output: summarized-actions.json artifact with usage statistics
• Requirements: Runs in a custom PowerShell container

6. build-image.yml - Container Build

• Purpose: Builds and publishes the PowerShell container image used by other workflows
• Triggers on: Push to main, used-actions, or fix-module branches
• Output: Container image at ghcr.io/rajbos/actions-marketplace/powershell:7

7. new-issue.yml - Project Management

• Purpose: Automatically adds new issues to a GitHub project board
• Triggers on: New issue creation
• Requirements: Needs PROJECT_TOKEN, PROJECT_ACCOUNT, and PROJECT_NUMBER secrets

GitHub Pages

How GitHub Pages Publishing Works

This repository uses GitHub Actions to publish to GitHub Pages, not branch-based publishing. The deployment involves two key workflows working together:

Deployment Method: GitHub Actions

Configuration Required:

1. Go to Settings → Pages in your forked repository
2. Under "Build and deployment", set Source to: GitHub Actions (not "Deploy from a branch")
3. This allows the workflows to deploy directly to GitHub Pages using the Actions deployment mechanism

Two-Workflow Deployment Process

1. Content Management: sync-to-gh-pages.yml

This workflow manages the static website files (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) by syncing them from main to gh-pages branch:

Purpose: Keep the gh-pages branch updated with the latest website files

• Triggers:
  • Automatically when index.html, script.js, style.css, or _includes/ files change in main branch
  • Manually via workflow dispatch
• What it does:
  • Copies static files from main to gh-pages branch
  • Implements cache-busting by updating version parameters (?v=timestamp) on CSS/JS references
  • Adds deployment metadata (branch, commit, timestamp) to the HTML
  • Ensures the .nojekyll file is present to disable Jekyll processing
• Branch Role: The gh-pages branch serves as a staging area for all website content before deployment

2. Deployment: jekyll-gh-pages.yml

This workflow actually publishes the site to GitHub Pages:

Purpose: Deploy the gh-pages branch content to the live GitHub Pages site

• Triggers:
  • Automatically when the sync-to-gh-pages.yml workflow completes successfully (using workflow_run trigger)
  • Manually via workflow dispatch
• What it does:
  • Checks out the gh-pages branch
  • Builds the site using Jekyll (though .nojekyll prevents Jekyll transformation)
  • Uploads the built site as a Pages artifact
  • Deploys to the live GitHub Pages environment
• Permissions: Requires pages: write and id-token: write permissions for deployment
• Note: Uses workflow_run trigger instead of push to avoid GitHub's limitation where workflows triggered by GITHUB_TOKEN don't trigger other workflows

The Complete Flow

Main Branch Changes
    ↓
[sync-to-gh-pages.yml runs]
    ↓
Files copied to gh-pages branch
    ↓
[jekyll-gh-pages.yml triggered]
    ↓
Site deployed to GitHub Pages
    ↓
Live at https://[owner].github.io/actions-marketplace/

Data File Updates (get-action-data.yml)

The action data (JSON file) is updated separately:

• Triggers: Push to main, schedule (weekdays at 7 AM), or manual dispatch
• Process:
  • Scans all repositories in the organization for action.yml files
  • Generates actions-data.json with action metadata
  • Uploads the JSON directly to the gh-pages branch
  • This triggers the sync-to-gh-pages.yml workflow, which then triggers jekyll-gh-pages.yml to redeploy with updated data

Key Files

• .nojekyll: Empty file that disables Jekyll processing, preventing theme interference with custom CSS and eliminating build delays. Must exist in main branch to be synced to gh-pages.
• _config.yml: Contains minimal Jekyll configuration with theme removed to prevent CSS conflicts.
• actions-data-url.txt: Points to the JSON data file location.

Cache Busting

The sync-to-gh-pages.yml workflow implements automatic cache busting:

• Updates version parameters (?v=timestamp) on CSS and JS references in index.html
• Forces browsers to reload updated files instead of using cached versions
• The index.html in main branch has placeholder versions that get replaced during sync

Important Notes

• ⚠️ Do not configure Pages to deploy from the gh-pages branch directly - this would bypass the Jekyll workflow
• ✅ Do set Pages source to "GitHub Actions" in repository settings
• The gh-pages branch is an intermediate storage location, not the direct publishing source
• Both workflows must remain enabled for the deployment to function correctly

Security

When you fork this repository, you'll need to verify and then trust the automated workflow, before it will start to run. We use the default GITHUB_TOKEN secret to write the data file back to the forked repository. We post the data file with our default user 'Marketplace Updater' that will show up in your git commit history. If you want to override these values, create these secrets and provide values:

• username
• useremail

Contributions

Please write an issue first, so we can discuss the direction before putting in to much work.

Running locally: data file generation

To run things locally you need to have PowerShell Core installed and to setup these parameters:

$organization="rajbos-actions"
$marketplaceRepo="rajbos-actions/actions-marketplace"
$GITHUB_TOKEN="gh-xyz123"
$username = "Rob Bos" # will be used for commiting the changes
$useremail = "your-email@domain.com" # will be used for commiting the changes

Then you can call the updater to check all repositories in your organization:

.\src\updater.ps1 -orgName $organization -PAT $GITHUB_TOKEN -marketplaceRepo $marketplaceRepo -userName $username -userEmail $useremail

Running locally: marketplace website testing:

Use a webhosting application to host the index.html file so you can test and debug it. Configure the actions-data-url.txt file to point to a filled json file with the correct structure (generate it once or use https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rajbos-actions/actions-marketplace/gh-pages/actions-data.json).