@engineerd/configurator

Cross-platform GitHub Action for downloading statically compiled tools (or archives) and adding them to the path. This has been tested on ubuntu-latest, windows-latest, and macos-latest.

This action can be used in two modes:

directly providing a download URL (or a URL per-platform, using a configuration matrix)
providing a URL template and a semver version or range to be selected from GitHub releases. In this mode, the action iterates through the GitHub releases to find the latest version that satisfies the version (or range) constraint, constructs the download URL, and adds the tool to the path.

Directly downloading tools based on URL

Inputs:

name: name your tool will be configured with (required)
url: URL to download your tool from (required)
pathInArchive: if the URL points to an archive, this field is required, and points to the path of the tool to configure, relative to the archive root

Examples - a cross-platform action that downloads, extracts, and adds Helm v3.3.0 to the path:

jobs:
  configurator:
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.config.os }}
    strategy:
      matrix:
        config:
          - {
              os: "ubuntu-latest",
              url: "https://get.helm.sh/helm-v3.3.0-linux-amd64.tar.gz",
              name: "h3",
              pathInArchive: "linux-amd64/helm",
            }
          - {
              os: "windows-latest",
              url: "https://get.helm.sh/helm-v3.3.0-windows-amd64.zip",
              name: "h3.exe",
              pathInArchive: "windows-amd64/helm.exe",
            }
    steps:
      - uses: engineerd/configurator@v0.0.9
        with:
          name: ${{ matrix.config.name }}
          url: ${{ matrix.config.url }}
          pathInArchive: ${{ matrix.config.pathInArchive }}
      - name: Testing
        run: |
          h3 --help

Selecting versions from GitHub Releases

Inputs:

name: name your tool will be configured with (required)
pathInArchive: if the URL points to an archive, this field is required, and points to the path of the tool to configure, relative to the archive root
fromGitHubReleases: if true, the action will attempt to get the latest version from the specified repository's GitHub Releases that matches the given semver version or range provided, and then construct the download URL using the provided urlTemplate.
repo: GitHub repository of the tool. Used to list all releases and select the proper version. Required if fromGitHubReleases is true.
version: an exact semver version or version range (specified with ^ or ~, as defined and used by NPM). If using semver ranges with v0.x.x releases, be sure to understand the semver behavior here. If latest is provided, the action will download the latest release (respecting the includePrereleases flag), which, can break your action. Required if fromGitHubReleases is true.
token: GitHub token used only to list the GitHub releases for the supplied repository. For most cases, its value should be ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}. Required if fromGitHubReleases is true.
urlTemplate: a URL template used to construct the download URL, together with the desired version acquired from a GitHub release. For example, https://get.helm.sh/helm-{{version}}-linux-amd64.tar.gz (the version inserted here is the exact tag name from GitHub - check whether the tag name contains any v before the version when constructing the URL template). Note that this is Mustache template (completely separate from the GitHub Actions templating system - the template must be {{version}}). Note that if the version tag has a leading v, a {{rawVersion}} variable that doesn't contain the leading v can be used in the urlTemplate. Required if fromGitHubReleases is true.
includePrereleases: if true, the action will include pre-releases when selecting a version from GitHub Releases.

Example - a cross-platform action that selects the latest Helm version that satisfies the ^3.1.2 release constraint - meaning it selects any minor and patch update, or, in other words, the latest v3.x.x version:

jobs:
  configurator:
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.config.os }}
    strategy:
      matrix:
        config:
          - {
              os: "ubuntu-latest",
              urlTemplate: "https://get.helm.sh/helm-{{version}}-linux-amd64.tar.gz",
              name: "h3",
              pathInArchive: "linux-amd64/helm",
            }
          - {
              os: "windows-latest",
              urlTemplate: "https://get.helm.sh/helm-{{version}}-windows-amd64.zip",
              name: "h3.exe",
              pathInArchive: "windows-amd64/helm.exe",
            }
    steps:
      - uses: engineerd/configurator@v0.0.9
        with:
          name: ${{ matrix.config.name }}
          pathInArchive: ${{ matrix.config.pathInArchive }}
          fromGitHubReleases: "true"
          repo: "helm/helm"
          version: "^v3.1.2"
          urlTemplate: ${{ matrix.config.urlTemplate }}
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

      - name: Testing
        run: |
          h3 --help

Example - an action that selects the latest non-pre-release (as marked in the GitHub release) of Kind:

jobs:
  kind:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: engineerd/configurator@v0.0.9
        with:
          name: "kind"
          fromGitHubReleases: "true"
          repo: "kubernetes-sigs/kind"
          urlTemplate: "https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/kind/releases/download/{{version}}/kind-linux-amd64"
          version: "latest"
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

      - name: Testing
        run: |
          kind --help

Other examples

download an executable from a given URL and move it to a folder in path with the given name:

name: "Test plain file"
on: [pull_request, push]

jobs:
  kind:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: engineerd/configurator@v0.0.9
        with:
          name: "kind"
          url: "https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/kind/releases/download/v0.8.1/kind-linux-amd64"
      - name: Testing
        run: |
          kind --help

download a .tar.gz archive from a given URL, and move a certain file from the archive directory to a folder in path, with a given name:

name: "Test .tar.gz"
on: [pull_request, push]

jobs:
  kind:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: engineerd/configurator@v0.0.9
        with:
          name: "h3"
          url: "https://get.helm.sh/helm-v3.3.0-linux-amd64.tar.gz"
          pathInArchive: "linux-amd64/helm"
      - name: Testing
        run: |
          h3 --help

download a .zip archive on Windows from a given URL, and move a certain file from the archive directory to a folder in path, with a given name:

name: "Test .zip"
on: [pull_request, push]

jobs:
  kind:
    runs-on: windows-latest
    steps:
      - uses: engineerd/configurator@v0.0.9
        with:
          name: "h3.exe"
          url: "https://get.helm.sh/helm-v3.3.0-windows-amd64.zip"
          pathInArchive: "windows-amd64/helm.exe"
      - name: Testing
        run: |
          h3 --help

Note: usually, Windows-specific tooling uses .zip archives - and the tar utility on Windows doesn't seem to handle .tar.gz files properly. Note: for Linux, chmod +x is called on the target file before moving it to the path, ensuring it is executable. On Windows this is skipped.