Empty Packages list

[jg-development]

I am using this yaml:

      - name: cache php apt packages
        uses: awalsh128/cache-apt-pkgs-action@master
        with:
          packages: php8.4
          version: 1.0
          debug: true
          add-repository: ppa:ondrej/php

the result is:

[Security/composer-audit] [DEBUG] Writing entry to tarball workflow/1-composite-pre-cache.sh len:321
[Security/composer-audit] [DEBUG] Extracting content to '/var/run/act'
[Security/composer-audit]   🐳  docker exec cmd=[bash --noprofile --norc -e -o pipefail /var/run/act/workflow/1-composite-pre-cache.sh] user= workdir=
[Security/composer-audit] [DEBUG] Exec command '[bash --noprofile --norc -e -o pipefail /var/run/act/workflow/1-composite-pre-cache.sh]'
[Security/composer-audit] [DEBUG] Working directory '/home/xxx'
| + cache_dir=/home/runner/cache-apt-pkgs
| + version=2.0
| + execute_install_scripts=false
| + debug=true
| + add_repository=ppa:ondrej/php
| + input_packages=php8.4
| + log 'Normalizing package list...'
| + echo 'Normalizing package list...'
| Normalizing package list...
| ++ get_normalized_package_list php8.4
| +++ echo php8.4
| +++ sed 's/[,\]/ /g; s/\s\+/ /g; s/^\s\+//g; s/\s\+$//g'
| +++ sort '-t '
| ++ local packages=php8.4
| ++++ realpath -- /var/run/act/actions/awalsh128-cache-apt-pkgs-action@master/pre_cache_action.sh
| +++ dirname -- /run/act/actions/awalsh128-cache-apt-pkgs-action@master/pre_cache_action.sh
| ++ local script_dir=/run/act/actions/awalsh128-cache-apt-pkgs-action@master
| +++ dpkg --print-architecture
| ++ local architecture=amd64
| ++ '[' amd64 == arm64 ']'
| ++ /run/act/actions/awalsh128-cache-apt-pkgs-action@master/apt_query-x86 normalized-list php8.4
| exit status 100+ packages=
| + log done
| + echo done
| done
| + mkdir -p /home/runner/cache-apt-pkgs
| + log 'Validating action arguments (version='\''2.0'\'', packages='\'''\'')...'
| + echo 'Validating action arguments (version='\''2.0'\'', packages='\'''\'')...'
| Validating action arguments (version='2.0', packages='')...
| + grep -q ' '
| + test -z ''
| + case "$EMPTY_PACKAGES_BEHAVIOR" in
| + log aborted
| + echo aborted
| aborted
| + log 'Packages argument is empty.'
| + echo 'Packages argument is empty.'
| Packages argument is empty.
| + exit 3
[Security/composer-audit]   ❌  Failure - Main ${GITHUB_ACTION_PATH}/pre_cache_action.sh \
  ~/cache-apt-pkgs \
  "$VERSION" \
  "$EXEC_INSTALL_SCRIPTS" \
  "$DEBUG" \
  "$ADD_REPOSITORY" \
  "$PACKAGES"
if [ -f ~/cache-apt-pkgs/cache_key.md5 ]; then
  echo "CACHE_KEY=$(cat ~/cache-apt-pkgs/cache_key.md5)" >> $GITHUB_ENV
else
  echo "CACHE_KEY=" >> $GITHUB_ENV
fi
 [160.482741ms]
[Security/composer-audit] exitcode '3': failure

the packages arguments are not injected into the script.
any ideas?

[jg-development]

@awalsh128
Could it be, that the "." ist a problem?

[extrawurst]

running into the same issue after updating to the latest github/action-runner:2.330 image

[myrrc]

I can also reproduce this with package being libcurl-openssl-dev, but the runners are runs-on, not github's own ones.

[paul-c-hartman]

Having the same issue, also with runs-on. The relevant run is here. I suspect that the issue is the apt-query-x86 binary has dependencies present in the Github images that are not present in, say, ubuntu-latest (what I'm running). That comes from these two lines, which are also present in my debug output:

| ++ /run/act/actions/awalsh128-cache-apt-pkgs-action@master/apt_query-x86 normalized-list [dependencies]
| exit status 100+ packages=

It exits with status 100 and the debug output shows that at this point packages is empty. There's no error message though, which is weird. The source code for apt_query shows that these errors always come with an error message (I think, I didn't do an exhaustive check). Here's the extracted log for apt_query-x86 for that run--I'll save you the click, all it contains is 2026/03/08 15:19:24 exit status 100. I'm not a Go dev so I wasn't sure where to look from there.

@awalsh128 are you the right person to ask about this? any ideas?

[BenDeJonge]

I am facing the same empty package list issue with:

      - name: Install graphical dependencies
        uses: awalsh128/cache-apt-pkgs-action@latest
        with:
          packages: libegl1-mesa-dev libxkbcommon-x11-0 libfontconfig1
          version: 1.0

I assume this ticket is the same as #158?