Output Cake tasks summary to GitHub actions step summary

[paulomorgado]

Is there anything built in to report Cake tasks summary to GitHub actions summary?

Adding this:

Task                     Duration            Status
------------------------------------------------------
Build-Solution           00:00:UU.0000000    Succeeded
Run-Tests                00:00:VV.0000000    Succeeded
Run-Integration-Tests    00:00:WW.0000000    Succeeded
------------------------------------------------------
Total:                        00:01:XX.0000000

to the step summary

[devlead]

Not built-in, but you can use Cake.BuildSystems.Module
Example:
https://github.com/cake-build/cakesdk-example/blob/6fa0751d24a4c2ef63aa78c084ccef3b1687c93c/cake.cs#L2

https://github.com/cake-build/cakesdk-example/actions/runs/26491543109

[paulomorgado]

https://github.com/cake-contrib/Cake.BuildSystems.Module, right?

[devlead]

Correct.

[vincere-mori]

I do not think Cake has a built-in switch that automatically writes the task summary to the GitHub Actions step summary, but you can write to the file GitHub exposes through GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY.

Example shape:

var summaryFile = EnvironmentVariable("GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY");

Teardown(context =>
{
    if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(summaryFile))
    {
        var md = """
        ## Cake task summary

        | Task | Status |
        | ---- | ------ |
        | Build-Solution | Succeeded |
        | Run-Tests | Succeeded |
        """;

        System.IO.File.AppendAllText(summaryFile, md + Environment.NewLine);
    }
});

If you want the exact duration table Cake prints at the end, the pragmatic approach is to also run Cake with a log file/tee in the workflow and append the relevant block to $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY after the Cake step. But for a clean Markdown summary, collecting the task names/statuses in Cake and writing that file directly is the most controllable option.

[devlead]

The Cake BuildSystem module do that by just adding a references to it.

#4844 (comment)