When these flags are active, actions/cache will output explicit network requests, archive sizes, compression speeds, and backend cache server status codes directly into your GitHub Actions console log. 2. Common Cache Failure Scenarios and Fixes
Additional information could help me provide a more precise report.
For a more thorough investigation, you can bypass the workflow logs entirely and query the GitHub Cache API directly. The endpoint GET /repos/owner/repo/actions/caches returns a list of all caches for your repository, including their id , key , version , scope , created_at , and last_accessed_at timestamps.
An action cache stores the intermediate output of a workflow step so subsequent runs can reuse it. This mechanism spans several popular environments: debug-action-cache
step only saves the cache if the entire job finishes successfully. Step-by-Step Debugging 1. Enable Step Debug Logging
Caching not working · community · Discussion #163260 - GitHub
Self-hosted runners can persist caches on disk. debug-action-cache here means inspecting the runner's local drive. When these flags are active, actions/cache will output
- uses: actions/cache@v4 with: path: ~/.npm key: $ runner.os -npm-cache-$ hashFiles('**/package-lock.json') restore-keys: $ runner.os -npm-cache-
user wants a long article about "debug-action-cache". This appears to be a GitHub Actions concept related to debugging cache actions. I need to gather comprehensive information. I'll follow the search plan as outlined. search results have provided some initial information. I need to gather more in-depth details. I'll follow the search plan for deeper dives. have gathered a substantial amount of information. Now I need to structure the article. The article will cover: introduction, understanding the caching mechanism, enabling debug mode, interpreting logs, common issues and solutions, performance debugging, best practices, and conclusion. I'll cite relevant sources.ging CI/CD pipelines is often a frustrating task, but few things are as perplexing as a broken, slow, or misbehaving cache. You’ve meticulously set up your actions/cache step to speed up your workflows, yet it stubbornly restores nothing, saves nothing, or even breaks the build. When the standard logs show only silence and a simple "Post job cleanup," how do you uncover what's really happening? This is where debug-action-cache —the collective art and science of enabling verbose logging for GitHub’s actions/cache —becomes your most powerful diagnostic tool. It lifts the hood on GitHub’s opaque caching service, transforming it from a "black box of mystery" into a transparent, decipherable system.
Implemented a validation step checking for the existence of a specific binary ( if [ ! -f node_modules/.bin/webpack ]; then exit 1; fi ), forcing a cache miss on failure. For a more thorough investigation, you can bypass
Your main branch restores a cache from a feature/x branch. This is bad because feature/x might have experimental dependencies. Solution: Prefix your key with $ github.ref_name . Debug: Check the logs. Does it say Cache restored from key: main-node-abc123 or feature/node-abc123 ?
Use flags to prevent compilers from adding timestamps to output binaries.