shell in step/defaults cannot use job/matrix templates

[jacekkow]

shell parameter in steps context should allow ${{ job/steps. }} variables.
I can see no reason for disallowing such expressions there.

To Reproduce

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
       - run: no matter what
         shell: echo ${{ job.status }}

https://github.com/jacekkow/github-actions-bugs/blob/master/.github/workflows/bug1.yml

Expected behavior
Step returns:

Success

Runner Version and Platform

GitHub Actions

What's not working?

The workflow fails:

The workflow is not valid. .github/workflows/bug1.yml (Line: 9, Col: 17): Unrecognized named-value: 'job'. Located at position 1 within expression: job.status

As far as I can tell this is due to non-empty-string being used instead of string-steps-context (or perhaps new non-empty-string-steps-context?) here:

runner/src/Sdk/DTPipelines/workflow-v1.0.json

Line 403 in 3d70ef2

"shell": "non-empty-string"

Similar change should also be made here:

runner/src/Sdk/DTPipelines/workflow-v1.0.json

Line 422 in 3d70ef2

"shell": "non-empty-string"

[TingluoHuang]

Shell is mean to set to ‘cmd’ ‘bash’ ‘sh’ and ‘powershell’
We do support expressions in the script content

• run: echo ${{job.status}}
  Shell: bash

[jacekkow]

Shell is mean to set to ‘cmd’ ‘bash’ ‘sh’ and ‘powershell’

Per docs:

You can use built-in shell keywords, or you can define a custom set of shell options.

https://help.github.com/en/actions/reference/workflow-syntax-for-github-actions#using-a-specific-shell

So I'm defining custom shell and its options (as documented). I really don't see a reason for "run" accepting expressions and "shell" not.

[TingluoHuang]

@chrispat for whether we allow expression in script's shell option

[chrispat]

I don't see any reason not to. The only reason we don't allow it is uses is so we can implement policy to prevent running certain actions.

[JustinGrote]

@chrispat any update? I want to run Powershell test/builds in matrix and right now I have two very redundant tasks with an if expression gating them.

[nikola-jokic]

Hi @JustinGrote,

While reproducing this issue, I noticed that shell expression would work now. Could you please tell me if you are still experiencing this issue? If you do, could you provide an example repository so I can reproduce this behaviour with your workflow, so I don't miss anything?

[oplik0]

Using the originally given example still seems to fail for me with Invalid workflow file error: https://github.com/oplik0/github-actions-shell-variables-test/actions/runs/1814312081/workflow

Full repo: https://github.com/oplik0/github-actions-shell-variables-test

Looking at files mentioned in the original post nothing seems to have changed there. The workflow I wanted to use this in (matrix for testing with different shells) also still doesn't seem to work, returning the same error.

Edit: added a quick example of my desired usage with matrix: https://github.com/oplik0/github-actions-shell-variables-test/blob/main/.github/workflows/matrix-example.yml - obviously also fails with same error: https://github.com/oplik0/github-actions-shell-variables-test/actions/runs/1819103791/workflow

[nikola-jokic]

Thank you for providing an example @oplik0!

I added this issue to the feature board.

[sio]

Another example where expressions could be useful in shell:

I tried to use custom shell with GitHub actions, and installed in previous step. But I can not reference the absolute path with: shell: ${{ github.workspace }}/bin/shell {0} because:

The workflow is not valid. .github/workflows/test.yml (Line: 77, Col: 16): Unrecognized named-value: 'github'

[msJinLei]

I modifiy the example workflow https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-jobs/using-a-matrix-for-your-jobs#example-expanding-configurations
into the following one.
It reports the same error as above.

name: Conditional Shell Matrix Workflow

on: [push]

jobs:
  example_matrix:
    strategy:
      fail-fast: false
      matrix:
        os: [windows-latest, ubuntu-latest]
        node: [14, 16]
        include:
          - os: windows-latest
            node: 16
            npm: 6
            shell: powershell
          - os: ubuntu-latest
            shell: bash
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ matrix.node }}
      - name: Install NPM
        if: ${{ matrix.npm }}
        run: |
            npm install -g npm@${{ matrix.npm }}
            npm --version
      - name: Print current working directory
        shell: ${{ matrix.shell }}
        run: |
          echo "The current working directory is $GITHUB_WORKSPACE"
          ls "$GITHUB_WORKSPACE"