GitHub Actions Cache with Google Cloud Storage Support

This fork of the GitHub Actions cache action adds Google Cloud Storage (GCS) as a cache backend with fallback to GitHub's built-in cache. This provides several key benefits:

Larger caches: Store cache files beyond GitHub's 10GB repository limit
Cross-repository caching: Access the same cache across multiple repositories
Custom retention: Control cache retention policies through GCS lifecycle management
Existing infrastructure: Leverage your existing GCS infrastructure and permissions

Quick Setup Guide

Create a GCS bucket for your caches (if you don't already have one)

Set up authentication:

- uses: google-github-actions/auth@v2
  with:
    credentials_json: ${{ secrets.GCP_CREDENTIALS }}

Add to your workflow:

- uses: danySam/gcs-cache@v1
  with:
    path: ~/.npm
    key: npm-${{ runner.os }}-${{ hashFiles('**/package-lock.json') }}
    gcs-bucket: your-gcs-bucket-name

That's it! Your cache will now use GCS storage with automatic fallback to GitHub's cache.

Documentation

See "Caching dependencies to speed up workflows" for GitHub's cache documentation.

Using GCS Cache

# Quick start example
name: Build with GCS Cache
on: push
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: 'read'
      id-token: 'write' # Required for GCP workload identity federation
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    
    # Authenticate with Google Cloud
    - uses: google-github-actions/auth@v2
      with:
        credentials_json: ${{ secrets.GCP_CREDENTIALS }}
        # Or use workload identity federation
    
    # Cache dependencies with GCS
    - uses: danySam/gcs-cache@v1
      with:
        path: path/to/dependencies
        key: ${{ runner.os }}-${{ hashFiles('**/lockfiles') }}
        gcs-bucket: your-gcs-bucket-name

Authentication with Google Cloud

This action uses Application Default Credentials (ADC) to authenticate with Google Cloud. The recommended approach is to use the official Google Cloud auth action:

- uses: google-github-actions/auth@v2
  with:
    # Using Service Account Key JSON (less secure)
    credentials_json: ${{ secrets.GCP_CREDENTIALS }}
    
    # Alternatively, use Workload Identity Federation (more secure)
    # workload_identity_provider: ${{ secrets.WIF_PROVIDER }}
    # service_account: ${{ secrets.WIF_SERVICE_ACCOUNT }}

For Workload Identity Federation, your workflow will need these permissions:

permissions:
  contents: 'read'
  id-token: 'write' # Required for workload identity federation

GCS Cache Configuration

After authentication is set up, configure the action with:

- uses: danySam/gcs-cache@v1
  with:
    path: path/to/dependencies
    key: ${{ runner.os }}-${{ hashFiles('**/lockfiles') }}
    gcs-bucket: your-gcs-bucket-name
    gcs-path-prefix: custom/prefix  # Optional, defaults to "github-cache"

Automatic Fallback to GitHub Cache

This action is designed to gracefully handle scenarios where GCS isn't available:

If the GCS bucket isn't specified, it uses GitHub's cache
If GCS authentication fails, it falls back to GitHub's cache
If storing/retrieving from GCS fails, it falls back to GitHub's cache

This ensures your workflows will continue to function even if there are issues with GCS access.

What's New

GCS Cache Integration

This fork adds full Google Cloud Storage integration to the GitHub Actions cache:

GCS Backend: Use GCS as your primary cache backend
Automatic Fallback: Gracefully falls back to GitHub's cache if GCS is unavailable
Simple Configuration: Just add gcs-bucket parameter to switch to GCS storage
Cross-Repository: Share caches between different repositories using the same GCS bucket

Migration from actions/cache

Switching from actions/cache to this GCS-enabled fork is straightforward:

- uses: actions/cache@v4
+ uses: danySam/gcs-cache@v1
  with:
    path: path/to/dependencies
    key: ${{ runner.os }}-${{ hashFiles('**/lockfiles') }}
+   gcs-bucket: your-gcs-bucket-name      # Add this line to use GCS
+   gcs-path-prefix: custom/prefix        # Optional

The v1 release of this fork is based on actions/cache@v4 and maintains full compatibility with all existing cache functionality.

Compatibility Notes

This fork maintains complete compatibility with:

The standard GitHub Actions cache API
The v4 cache service APIs
All existing cache features (cross-OS caching, lookup-only, etc.)

See the official repo for more information on the base action.

Note: The GitHub cache backend service is undergoing changes as of February 1st, 2025. This fork is compatible with the new v2 cache service APIs.

Usage

Pre-requisites

Create a workflow .yml file in your repository's .github/workflows directory. An example workflow is available below. For more information, see the GitHub Help Documentation for Creating a workflow file.

If you are using this inside a container, a POSIX-compliant tar needs to be included and accessible from the execution path.

If you are using a self-hosted Windows runner, GNU tar and zstd are required for Cross-OS caching to work. They are also recommended to be installed in general so the performance is on par with hosted Windows runners.

Inputs

key - An explicit key for a cache entry. See creating a cache key.
path - A list of files, directories, and wildcard patterns to cache and restore. See @actions/glob for supported patterns.
restore-keys - An ordered multiline string listing the prefix-matched keys, that are used for restoring stale cache if no cache hit occurred for key.
enableCrossOsArchive - An optional boolean when enabled, allows Windows runners to save or restore caches that can be restored or saved respectively on other platforms. Default: false
fail-on-cache-miss - Fail the workflow if cache entry is not found. Default: false
lookup-only - If true, only checks if cache entry exists and skips download. Does not change save cache behavior. Default: false
gcs-bucket - Google Cloud Storage bucket name to use for caching. When provided, GCS will be used as the cache backend.
gcs-credentials - Google Cloud Storage credentials JSON (service account key). If not provided, default authentication will be used.
gcs-path-prefix - Optional prefix path within the GCS bucket for cache files. Default: github-cache

Environment Variables

SEGMENT_DOWNLOAD_TIMEOUT_MINS - Segment download timeout (in minutes, default 10) to abort download of the segment if not completed in the defined number of minutes. Read more

Outputs

cache-hit - A string value to indicate an exact match was found for the key.
- If there's a cache hit, this will be 'true' or 'false' to indicate if there's an exact match for key.
- If there's a cache miss, this will be an empty string.

See Skipping steps based on cache-hit for info on using this output

Cache scopes

The cache is scoped to the key, version, and branch. The default branch cache is available to other branches.

See Matching a cache key for more info.

Example cache workflow

Restoring and saving cache using a single action

name: Caching Primes

on: push

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4

    - name: Cache Primes
      id: cache-primes
      uses: danySam/gcs-cache@v1
      with:
        path: prime-numbers
        key: ${{ runner.os }}-primes

    - name: Generate Prime Numbers
      if: steps.cache-primes.outputs.cache-hit != 'true'
      run: /generate-primes.sh -d prime-numbers

    - name: Use Prime Numbers
      run: /primes.sh -d prime-numbers

The cache action provides a cache-hit output which is set to true when the cache is restored using the primary key and false when the cache is restored using restore-keys or no cache is restored.

Using a combination of restore and save actions

name: Caching Primes

on: push

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4

    - name: Restore cached Primes
      id: cache-primes-restore
      uses: danySam/gcs-cache/restore@v1
      with:
        path: |
          path/to/dependencies
          some/other/dependencies
        key: ${{ runner.os }}-primes
    .
    . //intermediate workflow steps
    .
    - name: Save Primes
      id: cache-primes-save
      uses: danySam/gcs-cache/save@v1
      with:
        path: |
          path/to/dependencies
          some/other/dependencies
        key: ${{ steps.cache-primes-restore.outputs.cache-primary-key }}

Note You must use the cache or restore action in your workflow before you need to use the files that might be restored from the cache. If the provided key matches an existing cache, a new cache is not created and if the provided key doesn't match an existing cache, a new cache is automatically created provided the job completes successfully.

Caching Strategies

With the introduction of the restore and save actions, a lot of caching use cases can now be achieved. Please see the caching strategies document for understanding how you can use the actions strategically to achieve the desired goal.

Implementation Examples

GCS Caching Examples

See our GCS-specific examples for complete workflow templates using Google Cloud Storage caching.

Creating a cache key

A cache key can include any of the contexts, functions, literals, and operators supported by GitHub Actions.

For example, using the hashFiles function allows you to create a new cache when dependencies change.

  - uses: danySam/gcs-cache@v1
    with:
      path: |
        path/to/dependencies
        some/other/dependencies
      key: ${{ runner.os }}-${{ hashFiles('**/lockfiles') }}

Additionally, you can use arbitrary command output in a cache key, such as a date or software version:

  # http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/date.1.html
  - name: Get Date
    id: get-date
    run: |
      echo "date=$(/bin/date -u "+%Y%m%d")" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
    shell: bash

  - uses: danySam/gcs-cache@v1
    with:
      path: path/to/dependencies
      key: ${{ runner.os }}-${{ steps.get-date.outputs.date }}-${{ hashFiles('**/lockfiles') }}

See Using contexts to create cache keys

Cache Limits

A repository can have up to 10GB of caches. Once the 10GB limit is reached, older caches will be evicted based on when the cache was last accessed. Caches that are not accessed within the last week will also be evicted.

Skipping steps based on cache-hit

Using the cache-hit output, subsequent steps (such as install or build) can be skipped when a cache hit occurs on the key. It is recommended to install missing/updated dependencies in case of a partial key match when the key is dependent on the hash of the package file.

Example:

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v4

  - uses: danySam/gcs-cache@v1
    id: cache
    with:
      path: path/to/dependencies
      key: ${{ runner.os }}-${{ hashFiles('**/lockfiles') }}

  - name: Install Dependencies
    if: steps.cache.outputs.cache-hit != 'true'
    run: /install.sh

Note The id defined in danySam/gcs-cache must match the id in the if statement (i.e. steps.[ID].outputs.cache-hit)

Cache Version

Cache version is a hash generated for a combination of compression tool used (Gzip, Zstd, etc. based on the runner OS) and the path of directories being cached. If two caches have different versions, they are identified as unique caches while matching. This, for example, means that a cache created on a windows-latest runner can't be restored on ubuntu-latest as cache Versions are different.

Pro tip: The list caches API can be used to get the version of a cache. This can be helpful to troubleshoot cache miss due to version.

Example

The workflow will create 3 unique caches with same keys. Ubuntu and windows runners will use different compression technique and hence create two different caches. And `build-linux` will create two different caches as the `paths` are different.

jobs:
  build-linux:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Cache Primes
        id: cache-primes
        uses: danySam/gcs-cache@v1
        with:
          path: prime-numbers
          key: primes

      - name: Generate Prime Numbers
        if: steps.cache-primes.outputs.cache-hit != 'true'
        run: ./generate-primes.sh -d prime-numbers

      - name: Cache Numbers
        id: cache-numbers
        uses: danySam/gcs-cache@v1
        with:
          path: numbers
          key: primes

      - name: Generate Numbers
        if: steps.cache-numbers.outputs.cache-hit != 'true'
        run: ./generate-primes.sh -d numbers

  build-windows:
    runs-on: windows-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Cache Primes
        id: cache-primes
        uses: danySam/gcs-cache@v1
        with:
          path: prime-numbers
          key: primes

      - name: Generate Prime Numbers
        if: steps.cache-primes.outputs.cache-hit != 'true'
        run: ./generate-primes -d prime-numbers

Known practices and workarounds

There are a number of community practices/workarounds to fulfill specific requirements. You may choose to use them if they suit your use case. Note these are not necessarily the only solution or even a recommended solution.

Windows environment variables

Please note that Windows environment variables (like %LocalAppData%) will NOT be expanded by this action. Instead, prefer using ~ in your paths which will expand to the HOME directory. For example, instead of %LocalAppData%, use ~\AppData\Local. For a list of supported default environment variables, see the Learn GitHub Actions: Variables page.

Contributing

We would love for you to contribute to danySam/gcs-cache. Pull requests are welcome! Please see the CONTRIBUTING.md for more information.

License

The scripts and documentation in this project are released under the MIT License

License

breezewish/gcs-cache

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