Cache always hits even when the files change

I’m using GH actions to publish a static site that reflects the current OpenShift versions. The code generates a json file every time it is executed and then it renders an html file. I use the cache action to cache the pip dependencies successfully and I want to use the cache to do the same but for the json file that is generated like so:

    - name: versions.json cache
      uses: actions/cache@v2.1.1
      env:
        cache-name: versions-json
      with:
        path: versions.json
        key: ${{ env.cache-name }}-${{ hashFiles('versions.json') }}

But it turns out that the cache always hits even if the file changes…

I’ve tried different combinations of the key such as ${{ env.cache-name }}-${{ hashFiles('**/versions.json') }} but the cache is never ‘refreshed’.

The repo is https://github.com/openshifttips/openshift-versions/ just in case.

Thanks!

[dhadka]

@iranzo The example above with the run_id in the key should work for that scenario, but it will be saving to the cache each run even if versions.json doesn’t change.

This is really a limitation of how (or more correctly: when) cache keys are calculated. There is a feature request to address this (https://github.com/actions/cache/issues/135), but this hasn’t been worked on yet as far as I know.

[e-minguez]

It looks like the github.run_id variable did the trick 😃 Final result looks like this:

    - name: versions.json cache
      uses: actions/cache@v2.1.1
      env:
        cache-name: cache-versions-json
      with:
        path: versions.json
        key: ${{ env.cache-name }}-${{ github.run_id }}
        restore-keys: ${{ env.cache-name }}-

Thanks!!!