evaluate github actions 2.0 (yaml-based) (azure vs actions)

[maxheld83]

GitHub Actions vs Azure Pipelines

both for public repos on GitHub.

	GitHub Actions	Azure Pipelines (GitHub)
Timeout	360 mins per job, not workflow	360 mins per build
Parallelisation	Up to 20 jobs and up to 20 workflows concurrently.	10
OSes	Win, macOS, Linux, Docker	Win, macOS, Linux, Docker
Caching	only for tools	in preview
Artifacts	supported	supported
Advanced Control Flow	via expressions	via conditions
Templating	via GitHub actions (limited to one step per action, obvs)	via yaml templates (multiple steps per actions)
Cross-Job (in-YAML) Variables	nope, only at level of steps	via variables in pipeline

Differences from GitHub Actions 1.0

• HCL -> YAML, obviously
• You can now use JS on "bare VMs" or shell on "old" actions docker images (was agnostic, but interface was just shell before). "bare VM" JS actions are faster, kind of like probot
• expressions are replacing the "filter" actions in HCL
• ✅ Seems to support pull requests / forks now see also here #32
• ✅ Logs are searchable, foldable, highlighted
• ✅ logs are real time #119

Other Observations

• There's now a real dev toolkit. (I think that's just for js actions #311).
• guessed it:

  "The GitHub Actions runner is a fork of the Azure Pipelines Agent."

• You can receive web notifications (neat).
• You can bring your own on-prem runners (later). Can't find docs for this, but Nat mentioned in the announcement.

[maxheld83]

Azure, for now, is more battle-tested and feature-complete for proper CI.

Especially missing from actions, for now, are:

• [ ] variables that you can share across jobs (though contexts and expressions get you some of the way there?) -> #336
• [ ] yaml-templates (somewhat more convenient perhaps than actions?) -> unclear, see #335
• [ ] caching #48

[maxheld83]

@jimhester I updated this again so we have a decent list of differences / missing features of GitHub Actions vs Azure Pipelines going forward medium-term. Hope I got the differences right.

I also wrote in to support again to clarify and report our above pain points preventing adoption in the medium term.