enact

enact is a Rust-based GitHub Actions workflow emulator, which parses your .github/workflows/*.yml files and executes them on your machine — no GitHub runner needed. Because running arbitrary workflow steps directly on your host can modify system state, we recommend running enact inside a container (e.g. Podman or Docker).

Features

• Full workflow YAML parsing (jobs, steps, matrix strategies, needs dependencies)
• GitHub Actions expression language with all 12 built-in functions
• All standard event types (push, pull_request, workflow_dispatch, etc.)
• Job dependency resolution via topological sort with cycle detection
• Matrix expansion with include/exclude rules
• Built-in emulation of common actions:
  • actions/checkout
  • actions/cache (save / restore)
  • actions/upload-artifact / actions/download-artifact
• Composite and Node.js action support
• GITHUB_OUTPUT, GITHUB_ENV, GITHUB_PATH file-based mechanisms

Quick start

Prerequisites

• Podman or Docker (for containerised execution)
• Rust 1.88.0+ (to build from source)

Run inside a container (recommended)

Note

Running inside a container isolates any side effects from your host system. Your repository should be mounted read-only at /mnt/repo; on startup, the entrypoint copies it to a writable /workspace directory so that enact can create temporary files without ever modifying your local checkout.

# Build a container image
git clone https://github.com/hyperfinitism/enact-rs
cd enact-rs
podman build -t enact:ubuntu-24.04 -f containers/ubuntu-24.04/Containerfile .

cd /path/to/your-repo

# Run all workflows
podman run --rm -v ./:/mnt/repo:ro,Z enact:ubuntu-24.04 -e push

# Run a specific workflow
podman run --rm -v ./:/mnt/repo:ro,Z enact:ubuntu-24.04 -f .github/workflows/ci.yml -e push

Run directly on your machine

Warning

Workflow steps execute shell commands directly on your host. Only use this if you fully trust the workflows you are running.

git clone https://github.com/hyperfinitism/enact-rs
cd enact-rs
cargo build --release
# Binary: ./target/release/enact[.exe]

cd /path/to/your-repo
enact -w . -f .github/workflows/ci.yml -e push

Usage

# Run inside a container
podman run --rm -v ./:/mnt/repo:ro,Z enact:<image-name> [OPTIONS]

# Run directly on your machine
enact [OPTIONS]

Options

Option	Description	Default
-w, --workspace <PATH>	Path to the repository root	.
-f, --workflow <FILE>	Workflow file (auto-discovers from .github/workflows/ if omitted)	all
-e, --event <EVENT>	Event type (push, pull_request, workflow_dispatch, ...)	push
--event-file <FILE>	Custom event.json payload
-j, --job <JOB>	Run a specific job only
--env <KEY=VALUE>	Set environment variable (repeatable)
-s, --secret <KEY=VALUE>	Set secret (repeatable)
--default-shell <SHELL>	Default shell for run: steps	bash
--runner-temp <PATH>	Runner temp directory	/tmp/enact/runner
--actions-cache <PATH>	Actions cache directory	/tmp/enact/actions-cache
-v, --verbosity <LEVEL>	Log level (Trace, Debug, Info, Warn, Error, Off)	Info
-l, --log-file <FILE>	Write logs to a file

Available container images

Image	Base
containers/ubuntu-24.04/Containerfile	Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble)
containers/ubuntu-26.04/Containerfile	Ubuntu 26.04 (Resolute)