Getting Back on Track: How to force act perform interactive setup again?

[uyriq]

I had the misfortune to execute act immediately after winget install nektos.act and agree to the interactively proposed large install. However, because I did not have Docker.Desktop installed, or perhaps for some other reason, act threw an exception and failed the download. Now, with Docker.Desktop already running, I don't know how to get act to perform the initial winget uninstall/install back actions again. What can you advise me, dear colleagues?

Despite the above problem I still tried running act -P windows-latest=-self-hosted hoping that maybe it doesn't need anything to work properly if I'm on windows platform and want to compile build a C app, usually on github this workflow worked without problems, but now I get

 act -P windows-latest=-self-hosted
time=“2025-01-22T20:52:25+01:00” level=info msg="Using docker host ‘npipe:////./pipe/docker_engine’, and daemon socket ‘npipe:////./pipe/docker_engine’”
[Build/build] ☁ git clone 'https://github.com/microsoft/setup-msbuild' # ref=v1.0.2
[Build/build] ☁ git clone 'https://github.com/actions/upload-artifact' # ref=v4.3.0
[Build/build] ⭐ Run Main actions/checkout@v3
[Build/build] ✅ Success - Main actions/checkout@v3
[Build/build] ⭐ Run Main Add MSBuild to PATH
[Build/build] 💬 ::debug::Execution arguments: -products * -requires Microsoft.Component.MSBuild -property installationPath -latest
[Build/build] 💬 ::debug::Trying Visual Studio-installed path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vswhere.exe
[Build/build] 💬 ::debug::Full tool exe: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio/Installer/vswhere.exe
| [command]“C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio/Installer\vswhere.exe” -products * -requires Microsoft.Component.MSBuild -property installationPath -latest
[Build/build] ❗ ::error::Unable to find MSBuild.
[Build/build] ❌ Failure - Main Add MSBuild to PATH
[Build/build] exit status 1
[Build/build] 🏁 Job failed

Well, maybe it's some kind of environment availability problem?
Of course msbuild is available in the system, but only in the path C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\MSBuild\Current\Bin\amd64`.
I checked that with where.exe msbuild.exe.

Anyway, if you have anything to say on the first or second question, thank you very much!

[gbakeman]

I was just about to post a question like this because we both want to do very similar tasks. I arrived at the point of using the -P windows-latest=self-hosted option since the documentation says:

act depends on docker (exactly Docker Engine API) to run workflows in containers. As long you don't require container isolation, you can run selected (e.g. windows or macOS) jobs directly on your System [...] In the latter case you don't need to have docker installed or running.

The Runners documentation further says:

If you want to run Windows and macOS based platforms and you are running act within that specfic environment you can opt out of docker and run them directly on your host system.

Here are some examples

act -P ubuntu-latest=-self-hosted
act -P windows-latest=-self-hosted
act -P macos-latest=-self-hosted

But, I haven't gotten nearly as far as you yet, probably because I haven't installed Docker. Getting it (Podman) installed and running is proving to be difficult with Hyper-V. But it shouldn't even matter, right? Here's what my output looks like:

act -P windows-latest=self-hosted
time="2025-02-22T16:12:35-05:00" level=warning msg="Couldn't get a valid docker connection: no DOCKER_HOST and an invalid container socket ''"
[Test install-vsix action] ⭐ Run Set up job
[Test install-vsix action] 🚀  Start image=self-hosted
[Test install-vsix action]   🐳  docker pull image=self-hosted platform= username= forcePull=true
[Test install-vsix action]   ❌  Failure - Set up job
Error: error during connect: this error may indicate that the docker daemon is not running: Post "http://%2F%2F.%2Fpipe%2Fdocker_engine/v1.47/images/create?fromImage=self-hosted&tag=latest": open //./pipe/docker_engine: The system cannot find the file specified.

[panekj]

-act -P windows-latest=self-hosted
+act -P windows-latest=-self-hosted

[gbakeman]

And that's why it's important to be very precise (or just copy+paste). Thank you @panekj . Do you want to post as an answer for OP to accept?

Edit: Looks like OP had the command right, so my problem was just not paying attention.

[uyriq]

Unfortunately I don't know if it's related to docker or something else. I've tried running both using an image, which is especially difficult for msbuild, and directly, and got the fail

[gbakeman]

At this point, I'm feeling tempted to open an issue since it feels like act isn't really behaving as it's supposed to.

[panekj]

Have you tried the command with vswhere?