Sparse checkout seems to be triggered when not intended

[bzbarsky-apple]

We have some GitHub CI that uses the checkout action like so:

            - uses: Wandalen/wretry.action@v1.0.36
              name: Checkout
              with:
                  action: actions/checkout@v3
                  with: |
                      submodules: true
                      token: ${{ github.token }}
                  attempt_limit: 3
                  attempt_delay: 2000

As of this morning all checkouts stopped working with this error:

Error: fatal: --filter can only be used when extensions.partialClone is set

You can compare a failing run at https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip/actions/runs/5223466703/jobs/9430364364 with a passing run from a few hours earlier at https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip/actions/runs/5222975743/jobs/9429182655.

The failing run is running this git command:

/usr/bin/git -c protocol.version=2 fetch --no-tags --prune --progress --no-recurse-submodules --filter=blob:none --depth=1 origin +136a312c1cd14c44c6187211b9e56365abc168eb:refs/remotes/pull/27177/merge

while the passing one ran this one:

 /usr/bin/git -c protocol.version=2 fetch --no-tags --prune --progress --no-recurse-submodules --depth=1 origin +afef8aa2c4add14255a80d46cb44c8380326c934:refs/remotes/pull/27157/merge

note the extra --filter=blob:none that is present in the failing command. This is presumably a change from #1369. I do see that that bit is conditoned on settings.sparseCheckout in that PR, but we are not setting sparseCheckout to anything anywhere in our repository...

[dfdez]

I will take a look to see what is the issue here!

[dfdez]

Hey @bzbarsky-apple after taking a look to this issue and making some test I figure out that it likely to be an error in relation with Wandalen/wretry.action@v1.0.36

I made some debug on Wandalen/wretry.action@v1.0.36 and when I run the action as you described the sparse-checkout option is set to "null" for some reason

I'm trying to figure out why this is happening but from the moment that is everything that I can do for you!

I will inform you with any news if any.

[dfdez]

The problem might be that if Wandalen/wretry.action@v1.0.36 setup default env, when running the getInput function of actions/toolkit the default INPUT_SPARSE_CHECKOUT=null might be transformed to actually "null"

I'm just speculating here because I don't know how Wandalen/wretry.action@v1.0.36 works, but that's where the problem can come from

Also here is an Wandalen/wretry.action issue that might be related with this topic

Regarding this issue I have run testing with edge cases like setting up sparse-checkout: "" or sparse-checkout: null and is working as expected therefore from the moment this doesn't seem to be an issue of actions/checkout

[bzbarsky-apple]

Where would that INPUT_SPARSE_CHECKOUT=null be coming from? I don't see mentions of INPUT_SPARSE_CHECKOUT anywhere in the checkout repository, in https://github.com/Wandalen/wretry.action or in the connectedhomeip repository... Also no SPARSE_CHECKOUT in the latter two repos and no INPUT_ anywhere near github actions in connectedhomeip or anywhere in wretry.action.

If you are able to reproduce this in a setting where you can modify the checkout code that's running, I would be very interested to know whether INPUT_SPARSE_CHECKOUT is in fact set in getInput. I would also be very interested in knowing how to run the checkout action that way, of course.

[dfdez]

Hey @bzbarsky-apple I have been taking a deeper look to this and now I can confirm that the issue is from wretry.action.

If you go to the js_action branch you can see on the Common.js a function called envOptionsFrom this function seems to process the options from the actions, if you see the code there is a conditional that is passing.

if( !( key in options ) && inputs[ key ].default !== undefined )

When reading the yaml the default option for sparse-checkout is null therefore when processing then env the env process.env[ key ] = null will end up being "null"

That is why Wandalen/wretry.action is setting sparse-checkout to "null" by default...

[bzbarsky-apple]

Interesting. So this is from action.yml in the checkout action, I see.

[dfdez]

Yes, but there is nothing we can do here, the issue is from wretry.action.

I have added an issue to see if they can fix it! Wandalen/wretry.action#85

[Shiho240]

I actually have the opposite problem but same error with github actions when I use ACT to run actions locally for testing. I get the Error: fatal: --filter can only be used when extensions.partialClone is set when i attempt to do a sparse checkout using the sparse-checkout option.

[dfdez]

@MasterShihoChief this is an issue that will happen when using git versions between 2.25 and 2.28being 2.28 the one that should work without any problem, you can see the commit of git here

I have opened an issue to see how we can solve this problem #1386 👍🏽

[Shiho240]

I was actually using git 2.37.1

[dfdez]

I have run some test using the git version 2.37.1 and I wasn't able to reproduce the error 🤔

Is it possible to have the logs ? Or at least the configuration that you are using on actions/checkout@v3 to be able to debug the issue?

Also I've been taking a look to the git repo and that error make sense to have it if you have a git version < 2.28 as you can see in the fetch.c

I wasn't able to find any other place on the code that referes that error after 2.28... Are you sure you are using git 2.37.1?

[dfdez]

@bzbarsky-apple this can be closed! Wandalen/wretry.action#85 (comment)

[bzbarsky-apple]

Perfect, thanks!