Is it possible to allow a `shell` intput? I am running a self-hosted ci and would like to run with powershell

[guilhermebodin]

something like

name: 'Run Pkg.build'
description: 'Run the build step in a Julia package'
author: 'David Anthoff'

branding:
  icon: 'box'
  color: 'gray-dark'

inputs:
  project:
    description: 'Value passed to the --project flag. The default value is the repository root: "@."'
    default: '@.'
  shell:
    description: 'The shell that you wish to run on your ci'
    default: bash

runs:
  using: 'composite'
  steps:
    # Occasionally, there are rather large delays (> a few hours)
    # between the time a package is registered in General and
    # propagated to pkg.julialang.org.  We can avoid this by manually
    # cloning ~/.julia/registries/General/ in Julia 1.5 and later.
    # See:
    # * https://github.com/JuliaLang/Pkg.jl/issues/2011
    # * https://github.com/JuliaRegistries/General/issues/16777
    # * https://github.com/JuliaPackaging/PkgServer.jl/issues/60
  - run: julia --color=yes "$GITHUB_ACTION_PATH"/add_general_registry.jl
    shell: inputs.shell
    env:
      # We set `JULIA_PKG_SERVER` only for this step to enforce
      # `Pkg.Registry.add` to use Git.  This way, Pkg.jl can send
      # the request metadata to pkg.julialang.org when installing
      # packages via `Pkg.test`.
      JULIA_PKG_SERVER: ""

  - run: julia --color=yes --project=${{ inputs.project }} -e 'using Pkg; if VERSION >= v"1.1.0-rc1"; Pkg.build(verbose=true); else Pkg.build(); end'
    shell: inputs.shell

[SaschaMann]

I have not tested it yet but I believe that would cause issues with the quotation marks and escaping in the run blocks.

The GitHub runners use the bash shell that comes with git for windows. Would it be an option to install that? Or do you want to use powershell on Linux?

[guilhermebodin]

hmm it probably will. The problem I am having is that when I try to run the action on a windows github runner it complains about not having a WSL installed

  julia --color=yes "$GITHUB_ACTION_PATH"/add_general_registry.jl
  shell: C:\Windows\system32\bash.EXE --noprofile --norc -e -o pipefail {0}
  env:
    JULIA_PKG_SERVER: 
Windows Subsystem for Linux has no installed distributions.

Distributions can be installed by visiting the Microsoft Store:

https://aka.ms/wslstore

[SaschaMann]

That sounds like it has WSL bash in the PATH rather than Git Bash. The bash.exe in that error message prints that error if WSL isn't installed.

I don't think this is something we can solve in this action but, without being able to test it, perhaps these workarounds could help:

• Ensure that Git Bash is installed and called when bash is called in a terminal. shell: bash is expanded to bash --noprofile --norc -eo pipefail {0} by the runner, so this might fix the issue.
• Fork the action to use powershell and powershell-style quotation marks. There aren't that many changes to this repo, so this might be feasible. Happy to add it to the julia-actions org as well, though I have no way of testing it so you'd have to update it when upstream changes.
• Some comments seem to suggest deleting that bash.exe in the error but I'm not sure if that works for GHA runners.
• Install WSL but I don't know if the environment variables etc. will exist in it.

[guilhermebodin]

I will probably go with one one of them. Thank you @SaschaMann !