Avoid duplicating workflow steps across multiple CI/CD pipelines by extracting common functionality into reusable actions. This improves maintainability, reduces inconsistencies, and ensures proper cross-platform compatibility when needed.
When you find yourself copying similar workflow steps across multiple pipeline files, create a composite action instead. Pay special attention to cross-platform scenarios where caching or other features may require specific configuration.
Example of extracting a common dependency installation step:
# Before: Duplicated across multiple workflows
- name: Get yarn cache directory path
# ... repeated setup code
# After: Extract to .github/actions/install-dependencies/action.yml
- name: Install Dependencies
uses: ./.github/actions/install-dependencies
with:
enable-cross-platform-cache: true
For cross-platform workflows, ensure proper configuration like enableCrossOsArchive: true when caching between different operating systems. This prevents cache restoration failures when artifacts are saved on one platform and restored on another.
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