git clone without actions/checkout

Your workflow should be lightweight as you wanted.

Intro

Did you know? When you do actions/checkout in your workflow:

name: My workflow

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: codeberg-tiny

    steps:
      - name: Checkout my repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v6

You are running a bunch of Node.js code, just for cloning the repo.

• https://github.com/actions/checkout
• https://code.forgejo.org/actions/checkout

How’s that?

If you think it’s fine, then all ok;
if you think it’s ridiculous, just take this:

    steps:
      - name: Clone my repository
        run: |
          git clone "https://oauth2:${GITHUB_TOKEN}@${GITHUB_SERVER_URL#*//}/${GITHUB_REPOSITORY}.git" .

It even works for private repositories!

To do more like checking-out specified branch, just add corresponding git commands.

More hacks

There are more useful environment variables in Actions environment. You can use a test workflow:

    steps:
      - name: Show env
        run: env

And see all environment variables in workflow output.