act deleted my all the ignored files

[khanakia]

Act deleted my all the ignored files, folders like .env.xx etc. Before it was working fine.

Any solution ?

[Deploy stag/build-and-push]   ❓  ::group::Removing previously created refs, to avoid conflicts
| [command]/usr/bin/git rev-parse --symbolic-full-name --verify --quiet HEAD
| refs/heads/main
| [command]/usr/bin/git checkout --detach
| HEAD is now at f214ea2 boilerplate: https://github.com/analyzify/golang_boilerplate/commit/82c2f746209934381cadf3d8894d564a8944e9f3
| M	.docker/Taskfile.yml
| M	.github/workflows/deploy.yml.gotmpl
| M	AGENTS.md
| M	scripts/internal/pkg/secrets_build/secrets_build.go
| M	scripts/main.go
| [command]/usr/bin/git branch --delete --force main
| Deleted branch main (was f214ea2).
[Deploy stag/build-and-push]   ❓  ::endgroup::
| [command]/usr/bin/git submodule status
[Deploy stag/build-and-push]   ❓  ::group::Cleaning the repository
| [command]/usr/bin/git clean -ffdx
| Removing .DS_Store
| Removing .env.prod
| Removing .env.stag
| Removing .github/.secrets.stag
| Removing .github/.secrets.stag.generated
| Removing .github/workflows/deploy.stag.yml
| Removing _keys/
| Removing scripts/scripts
| Removing tmp/bin/
| [command]/usr/bin/git reset --hard HEAD
| HEAD is now at f214ea2 boilerplate: https://github.com

[mg1986jp]

That git clean -ffdx is coming from the actions/checkout action, not act itself. When checkout runs, it cleans the working directory to ensure a fresh state — and git clean -ffdx removes everything not tracked by git, including gitignored files like .env.* and _keys/.

The reason this works fine in GitHub Actions but bites you locally with act is that GitHub Actions runs in a disposable container where there's nothing important to delete. With act, it mounts your actual local repo (or a copy of it), so those files are your real files.

A few ways to deal with this:

• Use --bind with a copy of your repo instead of the original, so act doesn't touch your working directory
• Set clean: false in your checkout step:

  - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    with:
      clean: false

• Back up your .env.* files before running act, or keep them outside the repo directory

The clean: false option is probably the easiest fix if you just want to stop the deletion.