Action Reference

The Action resolves manifests, installs a verified xcsh executable, invokes one deterministic operation, and publishes a stable aggregate report. Every identifier in this page is tested against action.yml to prevent documentation drift.

Operations

Operation	Manifest or identity requirement	Behavior
apply	files or manifest	Creates missing resources, updates changed resources, and preserves identical resources
create	files or manifest	Creates resources and fails when a target already exists
update	files or manifest	Updates resources and fails when a target does not exist
get	Manifests, or resource-kind with optional resource-name	Reads one resource or lists a resource kind
delete	Manifests, or resource-kind and resource-name	Deletes resources without an interactive confirmation
diff	files or manifest	Compares desired and live resources without mutation
export	resource-kind, or all: true	Writes reusable manifests from live resources
validate	files or manifest	Validates locally without XC credentials

Inputs

Input	Default	Description
operation	apply	One of apply, create, update, get, delete, diff, export, or validate
files	—	Newline-delimited manifest files, directories, or include globs
manifest	—	Inline JSON or YAML manifest content
recursive	false	Recursively read manifest directories
namespace	—	Override the namespace in every manifest and set XCSH_NAMESPACE
dry-run	none	Use client to calculate a supported mutation without changing a resource
output	auto	auto, json, yaml, table, or wide; auto uses YAML for export and table otherwise
result-file	—	Copy the aggregate JSON report to this path under working-directory
export-file	—	Write exported manifests to this path under working-directory
resource-kind	—	Resource kind for a file-free get, delete, or export
resource-name	—	Resource name for a targeted get, delete, or export
all	false	Export every supported resource kind
working-directory	.	Base directory used to resolve relative paths
xcsh-version	locked	Locked release or an exact version such as v20.4.0
api-url	—	F5 Distributed Cloud API base URL; sets XCSH_API_URL
api-token	—	F5 Distributed Cloud API token; masked and passed as XCSH_API_TOKEN
github-token	—	GitHub token used only to resolve digests for an xcsh version override

Outputs

All numeric outputs are serialized as strings by GitHub Actions.

Output	Description
result	Compact aggregate xcsh report JSON
result-file	Absolute path to the aggregate report JSON file
total	Total result count
succeeded	Successful result count
failed	Failed result count
changed	true when a mutation occurred or diff detected a difference
created	Created resource count
updated	Updated resource count
unchanged	Unchanged resource count
deleted	Deleted resource count
dry-run	Dry-run resource count
new	New resource count reported by diff
different	Different resource count reported by diff
identical	Identical resource count reported by diff
valid	Valid manifest count
found	Found resource count
listed	Listed resource result count
exported	Exported manifest count
error	Error result count
skipped	Skipped result count
xcsh-version	Exact installed xcsh version
xcsh-path	Absolute path to the verified xcsh executable

Input constraints

Condition	Result
A manifest operation has no resolved manifest	The step fails before xcsh starts
Manifest files are combined with resource-kind or resource-name	The step fails because selector forms are mutually exclusive
File-free get has no resource-kind	The step fails
File-free delete omits either identity value	The step fails
export combines all with resource-kind	The step fails because exactly one selector is required
export receives manifests	The step fails
A non-export operation receives all or export-file	The step fails
An unsupported operation receives dry-run: client	The step fails
Export selects table or wide output	The step fails because export requires JSON or YAML

Authentication

The input contract maps directly to xcsh environment variables:

Action input	xcsh environment variable
api-url	XCSH_API_URL
api-token	XCSH_API_TOKEN
namespace	XCSH_NAMESPACE plus the -n command option

The same environment variables may be set on the Action step instead. No AI provider credential, kubeconfig, console user name, or console password is used.

File behavior

• JSON objects, JSON arrays, YAML documents, and multi-document YAML are supported.
• Each files line may be a file, directory, or include glob.
• recursive: true traverses nested directories.
• Inline manifest content is written to a temporary file.
• Duplicate matches are de-duplicated.
• The complete batch is parsed and validated before a network operation.
• File URLs and the standard-input marker - are intentionally unsupported.

Stable result contract

Normal terminal output is for people. Automation should consume the typed outputs or aggregate JSON report, whose operation and count fields are validated before the step succeeds.