act

Act is a powerful CLI tool that allows developers to run GitHub Actions locally on their machines. Instead of having to commit and push code changes to test GitHub Action workflows, act provides fast feedback by simulating the GitHub Actions environment locally using Docker containers. It reads your .github/workflows/ files, pulls or builds the necessary Docker images, and executes the actions with the same environment variables and filesystem structure that GitHub provides.

The tool serves two primary purposes: enabling rapid iteration on GitHub Actions workflows without the overhead of pushing to remote repositories, and functioning as a local task runner that can replace traditional Makefiles. By leveraging existing GitHub Actions workflows, developers can eliminate repetitive task definitions and use a single source of truth for both local development and CI/CD processes.

Act is ideal for developers who work extensively with GitHub Actions, DevOps engineers who need to test complex workflows locally, and teams looking to streamline their development process. The tool requires Docker to be installed since it uses the Docker API to create and manage containers that match GitHub's hosted runner environments.

Installation

# via Manual build
git clone git@github.com:nektos/act.git && cd act && make install