GV

GeezerVison

The World Wide Web, restored to 800 pixels of glory.

Home|About|Gaming cabinet|Archives|How it works|Starter sites

On this site

  • Sign in
  • ActionsCI/CD and automation
  • CodespacesCloud development environments
  • All Features
  • Documentation
  • Training
  • Certifications
  • Build with Copilot
  • Customize Copilot
  • Integrations
  • Trending repos
  • GitHub Sponsors
  • Developer articles
  • Enterprises

This view

  • Original page
  • New address

GeezerVison is showing github.com — Cache CLI version information across Actions steps by henrymercer · Pull Request #3943 · github/codeql-action

Conversation

@henrymercer

@henrymercer henrymercer commented Jun 2, 2026 •
edited
Loading

Uh oh!

There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

Persist CLI version information across Actions steps to avoid calling codeql version in each step. This saves 3 to 6 calls (and associated JVM startups) in a typical analysis job.

We use the path to the CodeQL CLI as a cache key. This is robust to setting up a different CLI with init or setup-codeql in the same job, but if a user hotswaps the CLI with a different mechanism and keeps the path the same, we are going to have the wrong version information. That seems like a rare enough case to be acceptable, but if we care about this, we could introduce more data into the cache key (at the cost of some performance).

Risk assessment

For internal use only. Please select the risk level of this change:

  • Low risk: Changes are fully under feature flags, or have been fully tested and validated in pre-production environments and are highly observable, or are documentation or test only.

Which use cases does this change impact?

Workflow types:

  • Advanced setup - Impacts users who have custom CodeQL workflows.
  • Managed - Impacts users with dynamic workflows (Default Setup, Code Quality, ...).

Products:

  • Code Scanning - The changes impact analyses when analysis-kinds: code-scanning.
  • Code Quality - The changes impact analyses when analysis-kinds: code-quality.
  • Other first-party - The changes impact other first-party analyses.
  • Third-party analyses - The changes affect the upload-sarif action.

Environments:

  • Dotcom - Impacts CodeQL workflows on github.com and/or GitHub Enterprise Cloud with Data Residency.
  • GHES - Impacts CodeQL workflows on GitHub Enterprise Server.

How did/will you validate this change?

  • Unit tests - I am depending on unit test coverage (i.e. tests in .test.ts files).
  • End-to-end tests - I am depending on PR checks (i.e. tests in pr-checks).

If something goes wrong after this change is released, what are the mitigation and rollback strategies?

  • Rollback - Change can only be disabled by rolling back the release or releasing a new version with a fix.

How will you know if something goes wrong after this change is released?

  • Telemetry - I rely on existing telemetry or have made changes to the telemetry.
    • Alerts - New or existing monitors will trip if something goes wrong with this change.

Are there any special considerations for merging or releasing this change?

  • No special considerations - This change can be merged at any time.

Merge / deployment checklist

  • Confirm this change is backwards compatible with existing workflows.
  • Consider adding a changelog entry for this change.
  • Confirm the readme and docs have been updated if necessary.

Sorry, something went wrong.

Uh oh!

There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.
All reactions
Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings June 2, 2026 18:17
@henrymercer
henrymercer requested a review from a team as a code owner June 2, 2026 18:17
Copilot started reviewing on behalf of henrymercer June 2, 2026 18:17
View session
@github-actions github-actions Bot added the size/S Should be easy to review label Jun 2, 2026
Copilot AI reviewed Jun 2, 2026
View reviewed changes

Copilot AI left a comment

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

There was a problem hiding this comment.

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Pull request overview

This PR persists CodeQL CLI version information across GitHub Actions steps (via an exported env var) so later steps can reuse it instead of repeatedly invoking codeql version, reducing JVM startups and CLI calls.

Changes:

  • Persist { cmd, version } into CODEQL_ACTION_CLI_VERSION_INFO when first computing the CLI version.
  • Teach getVersion() to reuse the persisted version info keyed by CLI path.
  • Avoid re-running the CLI for printVersion() by logging the cached getVersion() result.
Show a summary per file
File Description
src/util.ts Adds persistence of version info via env var and enables cross-step reuse.
src/util.test.ts Adds unit tests for reusing/ignoring persisted version info.
src/environment.ts Introduces EnvVar.CODEQL_VERSION_INFO for cross-step persistence.
src/codeql.ts Switches version lookup/printing to reuse cached/persisted version info.
lib/entry-points.js Generated build output updated to reflect the TypeScript changes.

Copilot's findings

  • Files reviewed: 4/5 changed files
  • Comments generated: 3

Sorry, something went wrong.

Uh oh!

There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.
All reactions
Comment thread src/util.ts Resolved

Uh oh!

There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.
Comment thread src/environment.ts Resolved

Uh oh!

There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.
Comment thread src/util.ts Resolved

Uh oh!

There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.
@henrymercer
Cache CLI version information across Actions steps
bab673d
@henrymercer
henrymercer force-pushed the henrymercer/cache-cli-version-info branch from fb1ee9f to bab673d Compare June 2, 2026 18:35
@henrymercer
henrymercer requested a review from mario-campos June 3, 2026 10:09
mario-campos
mario-campos previously approved these changes Jun 3, 2026
View reviewed changes

@mario-campos mario-campos left a comment

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

There was a problem hiding this comment.

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Some minor nits, but overall LGTM!

Sorry, something went wrong.

Uh oh!

There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.
All reactions
Comment thread src/util.ts Outdated
return undefined;
}
if (
typeof persisted?.version?.version !== "string" ||

@mario-campos mario-campos Jun 3, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

There was a problem hiding this comment.

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Nit: I think this would be a bit more readable as a type predicate:

Suggested change
typeof persisted?.version?.version !== "string" ||
isPersistedVersionInfo(persisted) ||

Where isPersistedVersionInfo is defined as:

function isPersistedVersionInfo(x: unknown): x is PersistedVersionInfo {
  return typeof (x as any)?.version?.version === "string" &&
         typeof (x as any)?.cmd === "string";
}

Sorry, something went wrong.

Uh oh!

There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.
henrymercer reacted with thumbs up emoji
All reactions
  • 👍 1 reaction
Comment thread src/codeql.ts
);
}
util.cacheCodeQlVersion(result);
util.cacheCodeQlVersion(cmd, result);

@mario-campos mario-campos Jun 3, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

There was a problem hiding this comment.

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

There's a hypothetical "risk" here that a subsequent step/process may be inefficiently and repeatedly parsing the CODEQL_VERSION_INFO environment variable if the process calls getVersion() more than once.

The reason being that when getCachedCodeQlVersion() parses CODEQL_VERSION_INFO it does not store that result in the local variable cachedCodeQlVersion. That variable is only assigned when result === undefined—i.e.cachedCodeQlVersion is undefined and CODEQL_VERSION_INFO is unset/invalid—which is the first time that getVersion() is ever called.

Of course, this is all hypothetical because I don't think getVersion() is called more than once in the same step/process. And, it's probably a small penalty because it probably wouldn't take much time to parse the output of codeql version. But, the possibility would exist.

One option could be to always call cacheCodeQlVersion(...) just before returning from getVersion():

if (result === undefined) {
   ...
}
util.cacheCodeQlVersion(cmd, result);
return result;

Sorry, something went wrong.

Uh oh!

There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.
henrymercer reacted with thumbs up emoji
All reactions
  • 👍 1 reaction
@henrymercer
Address review comments
5ccef82
@henrymercer
henrymercer dismissed mario-campos’s stale review via 5ccef82 June 3, 2026 17:31
@henrymercer
henrymercer requested a review from mario-campos June 3, 2026 17:31
@github-actions github-actions Bot added size/M Should be of average difficulty to review and removed size/S Should be easy to review labels Jun 3, 2026
mario-campos
mario-campos approved these changes Jun 3, 2026
View reviewed changes
@henrymercer
henrymercer added this pull request to the merge queue Jun 4, 2026
Merged via the queue into main with commit ba47406 Jun 4, 2026
225 checks passed

Uh oh!

There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.
@henrymercer
henrymercer deleted the henrymercer/cache-cli-version-info branch June 4, 2026 10:12
@github-actions github-actions Bot mentioned this pull request Jun 4, 2026
Merge main into releases/v4 #3949
Merged
8 tasks
@mario-campos mario-campos mentioned this pull request Jun 4, 2026
Cache CLI extractor paths across Actions steps #3950
Closed
@github-actions github-actions Bot mentioned this pull request Jun 4, 2026
Merge releases/v4 into releases/v3 #3952
Merged
6 tasks
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Reviewers

Copilot code review Copilot
Copilot review effort
Applies to this pull request for everyone.Learn more about Copilot code review.
Copilot left review comments
@mario-campos mario-campos mario-campos approved these changes

Uh oh!

There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Assignees

No one assigned

Labels

size/M Should be of average difficulty to review

Projects

None yet

Milestone

No milestone

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

Uh oh!

There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

3 participants

@henrymercer @mario-campos
Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.This suggestion is invalid because no changes were made to the code.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is closed.Suggestions cannot be applied while viewing a subset of changes.Only one suggestion per line can be applied in a batch.Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.Applying suggestions on deleted lines is not supported.You must change the existing code in this line in order to create a valid suggestion.Outdated suggestions cannot be applied.This suggestion has been applied or marked resolved.Suggestions cannot be applied from pending reviews.Suggestions cannot be applied on multi-line comments.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is queued to merge.Suggestion cannot be applied right now. Please check back later.
You are visitor 01402503 — GeezerVison does not store the pages you look up.
Best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.7 or Internet Explorer 6 at 800×600. No cookies required.