Support raw_details parameter for annotations generated by GitHub Actions

[JojOatXGME]

Select Topic Area

Product Feedback

Body

GitHub Actions currently doesn't allow specifying the raw_details property for annotations.¹

raw_details string

Details about this annotation. The maximum size is 64 KB.
— https://docs.github.com/en/rest/checks/runs?apiVersion=2022-11-28#update-a-check-run--parameters

The raw_details of an annotation are visualized in the UI of GitHub after you click on the button labeled “Raw output”. It can be used for long text blocks like stack traces,

Actions like dorny/test-reporter@v1 and mikepenz/action-junit-report@v4 create a separate check run instead of publishing the annotations as part of the workflow job. I suspect that the missing raw_details property is a major reason for that.² Unfortunately, this creates another problem, as workflows triggered by pull requests my not have the necessary permissions.³

• Error: Resource not accessible by integration dorny/test-reporter#168
• add new permissions dorny/test-reporter#174
• Error: HttpError: Resource not accessible by integration dorny/test-reporter#229

To work around the new problem, the maintainers of these actions recommend creating a separate workflow for publishing the reports.

Workflows triggered by pull requests from forked repositories are executed with read-only token and therefore can't create check runs. To workaround this security restriction, it's required to use two separate workflows:
— https://github.com/dorny/test-reporter#recommended-setup-for-public-repositories

This adds another layer of complexity. I think the best solution would be if actions could create full-featured annotations without having to create their own check run. This should allow actions like dorny/test-reporter@v1 to avoid these workarounds.

PS: This workaround also caused further issues with the introduction of Artifacts v4.

• Test Reporter fails on workflow_run dorny/test-reporter#343
• actions/upload-artifact & actions/download-artifact v4 support dorny/test-reporter#363

Footnotes

1. You can see in the source code of the runner application, that there is no property exposed by the runner to specify the raw_details of a generated annotation.

   https://github.com/actions/runner/blob/f2c05de91c8a6448e86772d3c818c0d0e5e32474/src/Runner.Worker/ActionCommandManager.cs#L730-L738

   As a result, the @actions/core library also doesn't let you specify this property.

   https://github.com/actions/toolkit/blob/ae38557bb0dba824cdda26ce787bd6b66cf07a83/packages/core/src/core.ts#L40-L71 ↩

2. I am not a maintainer of the actions. However, I am currently only aware of this limitation regarding raw_details. and a different visualization of the summary. ↩

3. There is also a second problem related to this workaround described in Test report doesn't appear in expected place in GitHub UI dorny/test-reporter#67, JUnit report sent to wrong build mikepenz/action-junit-report#40 and Allow specifying workflow run when creating a checkrun from a GitHub workflow #14891. ↩