nektos/act

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

71649 stars · 2015 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

act is a Go CLI tool that runs GitHub Actions workflows locally by reading .github/workflows files and executing jobs in Docker containers. It emulates the GitHub Actions environment, enabling fast feedback without pushing commits, and can double as a local task runner.

Use cases

• test github actions workflows locally before pushing
• run ci pipeline on my laptop without committing
• debug a failing github workflow quickly
• use github actions as a local makefile replacement
• run workflow jobs in docker containers locally
• iterate on .github/workflows changes with fast feedback

When to choose

• you want fast feedback on workflow changes without push/commit cycles
• you need a local runner that mimics GitHub-hosted runner environments
• you want to reuse GitHub Actions syntax as a local task runner
• you have Docker available and want to test CI logic offline

When to avoid

• you need exact parity with GitHub-hosted runners or GitHub-specific services
• you rely on podman or non-Docker container backends (unsupported)
• your workflows depend on secrets, hosted services, or runners unavailable locally
• you need full CI/CD pipeline orchestration rather than local testing

Facets

cli-tool · maturity active

ci-cd developer-tools container-runtime testing developer-tools windows cli go github-actions local-ci workflow-runner docker task-runner devops automation containers linux macos

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markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="nektos/act")