All files are checked out even sparse-checkout option for single file

[jmlord]

When trying to checkout single file from root of remote repo, the sparse-checkout option appears to be pulling all files from that branch.

    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      with:
        # Repository name with owner. For example, actions/checkout
        # Default: ${{ github.repository }}
        repository: 'GEO-BON/bon-in-a-box-pipeline-engine.git'

        # The branch, tag or SHA to checkout. When checking out the repository that
        # triggered a workflow, this defaults to the reference or SHA for that event.
        # Otherwise, uses the default branch.
        ref: 'pipeline-repo-actions'

        # Relative path under $GITHUB_WORKSPACE to place the repository
        path: '.server'

        # Do a sparse checkout on given patterns. Each pattern should be separated with
        # new lines.
        # Default: null
        sparse-checkout: |
          prod-server.sh

    - name: Temp
      working-directory: .
      run: ls -la .server
      shell: bash

I would expect that the ls above will show only one file plus .git folder. Instead, we get the following:

Run ls -la .server
total 92
drwxr-xr-x  3 runner docker  4096 Nov 17 19:22 .
drwxr-xr-x 10 runner docker  4096 Nov 17 19:22 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 runner docker    69 Nov 17 19:22 .dev-paths.env
drwxr-xr-x  8 runner docker  4096 Nov 17 19:22 .git
-rw-r--r--  1 runner docker   930 Nov 17 19:22 .gitattributes
-rw-r--r--  1 runner docker    69 Nov 17 19:22 .gitignore
-rw-r--r--  1 runner docker    61 Nov 17 19:22 .prod-paths.env
-rw-r--r--  1 runner docker    89 Nov 17 19:22 .test-paths.env
-rw-r--r--  1 runner docker  1064 Nov 17 19:22 LICENSE
-rw-r--r--  1 runner docker  6285 Nov 17 19:22 README-dev.md
-rw-r--r--  1 runner docker 17396 Nov 17 19:22 README-user.md
-rw-r--r--  1 runner docker   454 Nov 17 19:22 README.md
-rw-r--r--  1 runner docker  1446 Nov 17 19:22 compose.dev.yml
-rw-r--r--  1 runner docker   517 Nov 17 19:22 compose.prod.yml
-rw-r--r--  1 runner docker  2480 Nov 17 19:22 compose.yml
-rwxr-xr-x  1 runner docker   486 Nov 17 19:22 dev-server.sh
-rwxr-xr-x  1 runner docker  5290 Nov 17 19:22 prod-server.sh

Note that the above gives the same result with sparse-checkout: 'prod-server.sh'.

[cyb3rko]

It appears I can replicate this problem

[boshoff]

Looking at the actions/checkout documentation, you need to specify sparse-checkout-cone-mode: false if you only want to check-out a single file.

[jmlord]

Looking at the actions/checkout documentation, you need to specify sparse-checkout-cone-mode: false if you only want to check-out a single file.

Thanks for the link! It's indeed very clear in this example. However, in the documentation of the parameters themselves, nothing states that sparse-checkout cannot be used on its own.

# Do a sparse checkout on given patterns. Each pattern should be separated with
# new lines.
# Default: null
sparse-checkout: ''

# Specifies whether to use cone-mode when doing a sparse checkout.
# Default: true
sparse-checkout-cone-mode: ''

I would expect either sparse checkout to automatically trigger that option, or that it be explicitly documented in the parameter description.