GitHub Actions General Availability

We’re making the GitHub Actions feature generally available to all users and organizations!

Starting on March 8th after 6:00pm, all users and organizations in the NC State GitHub service will be able to utilize GitHub Actions workflows for any repository. To accommodate a larger number of users, we are reducing the Artifact and Log retention time to 30 days instead of the current value of 90 days.

The Global Actions Runners maintained by the NC GitHub Service Team will continue to be available to all users. See the GitHub Actions Documentation for information on setting up repositories to use the Global Runners. Note that there may be longer queue times for processing due to the increased demand. We will be monitoring the service, and may be adding additional Runners if queue times get too long. Users are always encouraged to set up their own Runners if there is a requirement for timely execution, or if specific software or remote access is required.

Additionally, we are enabling the use of the GitHub Marketplace for Actions, starting with the general availability of the Actions feature. Users will be able to utilize Actions directly from the Marketplace, rather than needing to clone a copy of the Action locally to the NC State GitHub instance first. Usage of Marketplace Actions is restricted to Actions from verified creators which have been vetted and approved by GitHub.

We will be removing the local copy of the official GitHub Actions from the NC State GitHub instance, and those Actions will pull from the Marketplace instead. If your workflow does not define a version tag, then it will start using the latest version of the Action. We highly recommend version tagging all Actions to ensure they do not upgrade unexpectedly.

We will also be removing the ncstate-actions organization from the NC State GitHub instance, in favor of using the Marketplace and the actions organization instead. After March 8th, any users utilizing an Action from the ncstate-actions organization should switch to using an official Marketplace version, or to the copy in the actions organization instead. Please contact the GitHub Service Team if you need assistance switching. We will be removing the ncstate-actions organization on March 22nd at 10:00am.

Please contact github@help.ncsu.edu if you have any questions or concerns regarding this change.