Run ECS Task Action for GitHub Actions

Runs a one off task on an ECS cluster.

Table of Contents

• Usage
  • Sample workflow
• Credentials and Region
• Permissions
• Troubleshooting

Usage

    - name: Run ECS Task
      uses: researchsquare/run-ecs-task-action@v1
      with:
        task-definition: task-definition-arn
        cluster: my-cluster
        wait-for-task-completion: true

See action.yml for the full documentation for this action's inputs and outputs.

Sample workflow

The task definition file can be updated prior to deployment with the new container image ID using the aws-actions/amazon-ecs-render-task-definition action. The following example builds a new container image tagged with the commit ID, inserts the new image ID as the image for the my-container container in the task definition file, and then deploys the rendered task definition file to ECS:

    - name: Configure AWS credentials
      uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v1
      with:
        aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
        aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
        aws-region: us-east-2

    - name: Login to Amazon ECR
      id: login-ecr
      uses: aws-actions/amazon-ecr-login@v1

    - name: Build, tag, and push image to Amazon ECR
      id: build-image
      env:
        ECR_REGISTRY: ${{ steps.login-ecr.outputs.registry }}
        ECR_REPOSITORY: my-ecr-repo
        IMAGE_TAG: ${{ github.sha }}
      run: |
        docker build -t $ECR_REGISTRY/$ECR_REPOSITORY:$IMAGE_TAG .
        docker push $ECR_REGISTRY/$ECR_REPOSITORY:$IMAGE_TAG
        echo "::set-output name=image::$ECR_REGISTRY/$ECR_REPOSITORY:$IMAGE_TAG"

    - name: Fill in the new image ID in the Amazon ECS task definition
      id: task-def
      uses: aws-actions/amazon-ecs-render-task-definition@v1
      with:
        task-definition: task-definition.json
        container-name: my-container
        image: ${{ steps.build-image.outputs.image }}

    - name: Create Amazon ECS task definition
      id: task-creation
      uses: aws-actions/amazon-ecs-deploy-task-definition@v1
      with:
        task-definition: ${{ steps.task-def.outputs.task-definition }}

    - name: Run ECS Task
      uses: researchsquare/run-ecs-task-action@v1
      with:
        task-definition: task-definition-arn
        cluster: my-cluster
        wait-for-service-stability: true

Credentials and Region

This action relies on the default behavior of the AWS SDK for Javascript to determine AWS credentials and region. Use the aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials action to configure the GitHub Actions environment with environment variables containing AWS credentials and your desired region.

We recommend following Amazon IAM best practices for the AWS credentials used in GitHub Actions workflows, including:

• Do not store credentials in your repository's code. You may use GitHub Actions secrets to store credentials and redact credentials from GitHub Actions workflow logs.
• Create an individual IAM user with an access key for use in GitHub Actions workflows, preferably one per repository. Do not use the AWS account root user access key.
• Grant least privilege to the credentials used in GitHub Actions workflows. Grant only the permissions required to perform the actions in your GitHub Actions workflows. See the Permissions section below for the permissions required by this action.
• Rotate the credentials used in GitHub Actions workflows regularly.
• Monitor the activity of the credentials used in GitHub Actions workflows.

Permissions

This action requires the following minimum set of permissions:

{
   "Version":"2012-10-17",
   "Statement":[
      {
         "Sid":"RegisterTaskDefinition",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "ecs:RegisterTaskDefinition"
         ],
         "Resource":"*"
      },
      {
         "Sid":"PassRolesInTaskDefinition",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "iam:PassRole"
         ],
         "Resource":[
            "arn:aws:iam::<aws_account_id>:role/<task_definition_task_role_name>",
            "arn:aws:iam::<aws_account_id>:role/<task_definition_task_execution_role_name>"
         ]
      },
      {
         "Sid":"DeployService",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "ecs:UpdateService",
            "ecs:DescribeServices"
         ],
         "Resource":[
            "arn:aws:ecs:<region>:<aws_account_id>:service/<cluster_name>/<service_name>"
         ]
      }
   ]
}

Note: the policy above assumes the account has opted in to the ECS long ARN format.

Troubleshooting

This action emits debug logs to help troubleshoot deployment failures. To see the debug logs, create a secret named ACTIONS_STEP_DEBUG with value true in your repository.