Before using this action, consider writing a pure workflow!

Before using this action, please consider reading and learning how to write a workflow which is directly using the well known tools you can run on your own machine, without relying on GitHub actions that you cannot run on your development machine. You can read more in this issue about it: lukka#66

The run-vcpkg action for caching artifacts and using vcpkg on GitHub

The run-vcpkg action restores from cache vcpkg along with the previously installed ports. On the other hand when there is a "cache miss":

vpckg is fetched and installed; the cache's key is composed by hashing the hosting OS name, the command line arguments and the vcpkg's commit id.
- Restoring from cache can be skipped with doNotCache: true.
Then vcpkg is run to install the desired ports.
- This step can be skipped with setupOnly: true.
Artifacts and vcpkg are then saved in cache.
- Saving to cache can be skipped with doNotCache: true.
- Saving to cache happens at the end of the workflow in case setupOnly: true, otherwise it happens at the end of the action execution.

The provided samples use GitHub hosted runners.

Good companions are the run-cmake action and the get-cmake actions.

User Manual

Contributing
Quickstart
Best practices
- Use vcpkg as a submodule of your repository
- Use vcpkg's vcpkg.json file to specify the dependencies
Action reference: all input/output parameters
Samples
Projects

Contributing

Read CONTRIBUTING.md

Quickstart

Setup vcpkg and use CMake with a vcpkg.json manifest to install dependencies and build your project

It is highly recommended to use both vcpkg as a submodule and a vcpkg.json manifest file to declaratively specify the dependencies.

Both suggestions are shown in the hosted-advanced-setup-vcpkg-manifest.yml workflow, here below an excerpt:

jobs: 
  build:
    env:
      buildDir: '${{ github.workspace }}/build/'
    steps:
      #-uses: actions/cache@v1   <===== YOU DO NOT NEED THIS!
      
      # Install latest CMake.
      - uses: lukka/get-cmake@latest

      # Restore from cache the previously built ports. If a "cache miss" occurs, then vcpkg is bootstrapped. Since a the vcpkg.json is being used later on to install the packages when run-cmake runs, no packages are installed at this time and the input 'setupOnly:true' is mandatory.
      - name: Restore artifacts, or setup vcpkg (do not install any package)
        uses: lukka/run-vcpkg@v6
        with:
          # Just install vcpkg for now, do not install any ports in this step yet.
          setupOnly: true
          # Location of the vcpkg submodule in the Git repository.
          vcpkgDirectory: '${{ github.workspace }}/vcpkg'
          # Since the cache must be invalidated when content of the vcpkg.json file changes, let's
          # compute its hash and append this to the computed cache's key.
          appendedCacheKey: ${{ hashFiles( '**/vcpkg_manifest/vcpkg.json' ) }}
          vcpkgTriplet: ${{ matrix.triplet }}
          # Ensure the vcpkg artifacts are cached, they are generated in the 'CMAKE_BINARY_DIR/vcpkg_installed' directory.
          additionalCachedPaths: ${{ env.buildDir }}/vcpkg_installed

      - name: Run CMake to install the dependencies specified in the vcpkg.json manifest, generate project file and build the project
        uses: lukka/run-cmake@v3
        with:
          cmakeListsOrSettingsJson: CMakeListsTxtAdvanced
          cmakeListsTxtPath: '${{ github.workspace }}/vcpkg_manifest/CMakeLists.txt'
          buildDirectory: ${{ env.buildDir }}
          # This input tells run-cmake to consume the vcpkg.cmake toolchain file set by run-vcpkg.
          useVcpkgToolchainFile: true
          buildWithCMake: true

Setup vcpkg only and use your own scripts

When setupOnly: true, it only setups vcpkg without installing any port. The provisioned vcpkg can then be used in a subsequent step as shown:

    # Restore from cache the previously built ports. If cache-miss, download and build vcpkg (aka "bootstrap vcpkg").
    - name: Restore from cache and install vcpkg
      # Download and build vcpkg, without installing any port. If content is cached already, it is a no-op.
      uses: lukka/run-vcpkg@v6
      with:
        setupOnly: true
    # Now that vcpkg is installed, it is being used to run with the desired arguments.
    - run: |
        $VCPKG_ROOT/vcpkg install boost:linux-x64
      shell: bash

Flowchart

Action reference: all input/output parameters

action.yml

Best practices

Use vcpkg as a submodule of your repository

When using vcpkg, be aware of how it works, specifically:

a specific version of vcpkg must be used either locally and on build servers;
a specific version of vcpkg is identified by the commit id of the used vcpkg repository;
it not possible to choose which version of a port to install, instead it is the used version of vcpkg that establishes which version (just one) of a port is available;

To sum up, you need to pin the specific version of vcpkg you want to use to keep a consistent development experience between local and remote build environments. This is accomplished by using vcpkg as submodule of your Git repository; this way the version of vcpkg used is implied by the commit id specified by the submodule for vcpkg.

Use vcpkg's vcpkg.json file to specify the dependencies

The vcpkg.json is a manifest file that declaratively specifies the dependencies to be installed. The file is being used automatically by running CMake when:

starting CMake with the vcpkg.cmake toolchain file.
the root CMake source directory contains a vcpkg.json file.

When conditions are satisfied, the toolchain execution starts vcpkg to install the packages declared in the manifest file.

Putting this manifest-like file under source control is highly recommended as this helps to run vcpkg the same exact way locally and remotely on the build servers.* The dependencies specified in the vcpkg.json file are installed when CMake runs (i.e. at run-cmake time), hence the 'run-vcpkg' step must have the input setupOnly: true.

Samples

View the workflows based on the run-cmake and run-vcpkg actions.

CMakeLists.txt samples
Linux/macOS/Windows, hosted runner, basic
Linux/macOS/Windows, hosted runner, advanced
Linux/macOS/Windows, hosted runner, vcpkg as submodule
Linux/macOS/Windows, hosted runner, setup only and vcpkg as submodule

CMakeSettings.json samples
Linux/macOS/Windows, hosted runner, with vcpkg as submodule

Real world project samples

Project	Platform(s)
CppOpenGLWebAssemblyCMake	WASM/Linux/macOS
codehz/wine-bdlauncher	Windows
OPM/ResInsight	Windows/Linux
Mudlet/Mudlet	Linux/macOS/Windows
otland/forgottenserver	Linux/macOS/Windows
Element-0/ElementZero	Windows
zealdocs/zeal	Linux/Windows
libevent/libevent	Windows/macos/Linux
marian-nmt/marian-dev	Windows/Linux/macOS
GrinPlusPlus	Linux/Windows/macOS
OpenTDD	Windows/macOS
scummvm	Windows	`n/a`