[simse]

A linter can catch some obvious errors: https://github.com/rhysd/actionlint. But yes, I agree, it's not a fun debugging experience.

[woodruffw]

Yep, actionlint is great! I've used it successfully both to lint my own workflows, and to lint third-party workflows for (basic) security issues.

Unfortunately, it can't lint actions themselves, only workflows that call actions[1]. This is a substantial deficiency, especially for users (like me) who write and maintain a decent number of actions.

[1]: https://github.com/rhysd/actionlint/issues/46

[bastardoperator]

act would also be helpful here in terms of debugging and development of Actions workflows.

https://github.com/nektos/act