action doesn't use git repo with git > 2.18 installed

[acnicholls]

I can't seem to get my runner to create or use a repository

Here's my action calling code

      - name: Check out the code with a filter
        id: download-compose-files
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          ref: develop
          sparse-checkout: |
            docker-compose.ghcr-stage.yml
          sparse-checkout-cone-mode: true

and here's the result from the workflow log:

Getting Git version info
  Working directory is '<redacted>'
  /usr/bin/git version
  git version 2.25.1
Deleting the contents of '<redacted>'
The repository will be downloaded using the GitHub REST API
To create a local Git repository instead, add Git 2.18 or higher to the PATH
Downloading the archive

this is a self-hosted running ubuntu 20.04 and non-root user with the action runner running as a service.
what am I missing?

[BrunoBrunckhorst]

Hello, @acnicholls!

Did you find a solution in the end?

[acnicholls]

It's been a minute, i'll have to check tonight, @ work rn

[acnicholls]

thanks for your patience. I don't think I ever found a fix for it. I am still using this configuration in one of my repos, but since it doesn't stop anything from working, I just went with it for the time being.

the problem was that the entire repo was downloaded, not just the file mentioned in the checkout, as a zip file. So the action could and would continue successfully, but I was left with the remains of the repo still in the folder, because it was a "zip" transfer, not a "git" transfer
@BrunoBrunckhorst

[BrunoBrunckhorst]

I see, thanks for your answer!