Pause, debug with SSH and resume your GitHub Actions jobs with namespacelabs/breakpoint.

The following example shows how to define a step in a GitHub Actions job to run breakpoint in case of job's failure (so it won't pause successful runs):

jobs:
  tests:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    permissions:
      id-token: write
      contents: read

    steps:
      - name: Checkout the repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Run tests
        shell: bash
        run: ...

      - name: Breakpoint if tests failed
        if: failure()
        uses: namespacelabs/breakpoint-action@v0
        with:
          duration: 30m
          authorized-users: jack123, alice321

Or it can pause workflow jobs at any step:

jobs:
  tests:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    permissions:
      id-token: write
      contents: read

    steps:
      - name: Checkout the repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Build images
        shell: bash
        run: docker build .

      - name: Breakpoint to check the build results
        uses: namespacelabs/breakpoint-action@v0
        with:
          duration: 30m
          authorized-users: jack123, alice321

      - name: Run tests
        shell: bash
        run: ...

When Breakpoint activates, it will output on a regular basis how much time left there is in the breakpoint, and which address to SSH to get to the workflow.

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                                                                           │
│ Breakpoint running until 2023-05-24T16:06:48+02:00 (29 minutes from now). │
│                                                                           │
│ Connect with: ssh -p 40812 [email protected]                 │
│                                                                           │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Breakpoint can also be started in the background to allow connecting at any point during the workflow. This allows inspecting long-running steps or debugging stuckness.

Breakpoint will keep your workflow running after completion while there are active SSH connections.

jobs:
  tests:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    permissions:
      id-token: write
      contents: read

    steps:
      - name: Checkout the repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Start Breakpoint in the background
        uses: namespacelabs/breakpoint-action@v0
        with:
          mode: background
          authorized-users: jack123, alice321

      - name: Run tests
        shell: bash
        run: ...

This action offers inputs that you can use to configure breakpoint behavior:

• duration - is the initial duration of a breakpoint started by the action. A duration string is a possibly sequence of decimal numbers a unit suffix, such as "30s" or "2h5m". Valid time units are "ns", "us", "ms", "s", "m", "h".

  The default value is "30m".

• mode - is the mode that breakpoint is started with. Either pause (the default) or background. When running in the background, Breakpoint won't block your workflow. The duration input will have no effect when running in the background.

  The default value is "pause"

• authorized-users - is the comma-separated list of GitHub users that would be allowed to SSH into a GitHub Runner. GitHub users would need to have their public keys configured in GitHub as breakpoint fetches public keys from GitHub and uploads them to a GitHub Runner.

• authorized-keys - is the comma-separated list of public SSH keys that would be uploaded to a GitHub Runner.

• webhook-definition - is the path to a webhook definition file that contains url and payload fields. If webhook definition is provided breakpoint will send POST request to the provided url with the provided payload.

  Example of such definition file for sending notifications to Slack can be found here.

• slack-announce-channel - is a Slack channel where webhook sends and updates messages about started and currently active breakpoints.

  To use this feature necessary to provide SLACK_BOT_TOKEN environment variable. See here how to create a bot token.

• shell - is the path to the login shell.

  The default value is "/bin/bash".

• endpoint - is the quic endpoint of a breakpoint rendezvous server. By default the action will use a Namespace managed server - rendezvous.namespace.so:5000. Use this option when you want to use a different server or host your own

Note, that authorized-users and authorized-keys used to provided SSH access to a GitHub Runner. The action will fail if neither authorized-users nor authorized-keys is provided.