allow overriding workdir for container jobs

Describe the enhancement Allow overriding container’s workdir. Currently, even if passing --workdir=/somedir to the container: options: it does not override the first --workdir option passed to docker create by the runner. It would be nice to be able to override the workdir somehow, so that on self-hosted runners, after the job is done the checked out sources would not remain the in actions-runner/_work directory. In container jobs it makes no sense to mount the external directory, as all the job steps are executed within the container anyway. If work dir is set to some in-container directory, then after the job is done the container is discarded and all the build artifacts are discarded as well, no separate cleanup is needed.

Code Snippet

container:
  image: debian:buster
  options: --workdir=/home/build/myrepo

This example currently will result in that --workdir is passed twice to the docker create. The first one is the default one which is --workdir /__w/myrepo/myrepo and the second is the one indicated in options:, but it looks like docker create takes the first one and ignores the second one. So, there is no possibility to override the workdir. Need to exclude the default --workdir option in case options: contains custom --workdir option.

[yurirocha15]

I am having a similar issue. I need to place my code inside a specific directory in order to build it (which is the default workdir in my container). In my opinion, the runner should only set the workdir/HOME if they aren’t set (or provide a way to change the default values).

[prashantkalkar]

I am working around this limitation by providing a default workspace for the job. As follows:

jobs:
  <job_name>:
     container:
        image: ubuntu:20.04
     defaults:
        run:
           working-directory: /

Now any steps in the job will run as per new working directory. May be this is useful till the actual solution is implemented.

Note that, the marketplace actions might still work with the GITHUB_WORKSPACE location. So configure the action appropriately.