Unable to resolve action r-lib/actions@master (again)

[lexnederbragt]

Related to #775:

We have several workshop websites under https://github.com/uio-carpentry. The most recent builds fail for the action 'build-website' with the error message as listed in #775.

How can we fix this? Do we need to pull in the most recent changes from this repository?

If this happens to us, is it possible this happens to others as well?

[zkamvar]

It is very possible that it has happened to others as well. I have made pull requests to 77 repositories under the carpentries lesson programs, lab, and incubator.

The solution as per https://github.com/carpentries/styles/issues/641 is to replace the steps that install R with:

        uses: r-lib/actions/setup-r@v2
        with:
          use-public-rspm: true
          install-r: false

If you have several repositories that are failing that were created after 2021-05-21, then you can use a patch strategy to update them (less chance of a merge conflict) or you can attempt to update styles as a whole by using the update styles action shell script (which will attempt a merge, preferring changes from styles in a conflict)

$ git switch -c update-styles
$ curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/carpentries/actions/main/update-styles/update-styles.sh | bash /dev/stdin

If everything goes well from there, you can commit the changes and push, otherwise, you can use git merge --abort to bail.

[zkamvar]

On the topic of addressing this issue beyond repositories controlled by The Carpentries, it is... extremely difficult because I do not know of a way to easily query repositories that were created from template (i.e. workshops) or those that were crated via the importer mechanism (i.e. lessons), both of which need updating.

[lexnederbragt]

Thanks!

As there were only three repos that needed updating, I manually replaced the template.yml and website.yml files in them and submitted these changes as PRs.

[lexnederbragt]

On the topic of addressing this issue beyond repositories controlled by The Carpentries: may I suggest sending out an email or message through other channels to inform folks about this issue? In addition to your suggestions (patch strategy or update styles action shell script, you could also suggest my workaround, replacing two files with a 'repaired' version from this repository - it may be a bit easier for folks that are not so git/shell-savvy.

[zkamvar]

may I suggest sending out an email or message through other channels to inform folks about this issue?

This is definitely a good idea. I apologise not having done this yet; I've been battling a lot of extreme anxiety lately and it has been making things much more difficult.

you could also suggest my workaround, replacing two files with a 'repaired' version from this repository - it may be a bit easier for folks that are not so git/shell-savvy.

Agreed. This was the second strategy I used for updating the files.

[zkamvar]

Hi Lex, can this be closed?

[lexnederbragt]

Sure. The patch worked for all sites we applied it to.