docker compose build running on action runners uses wrong path to build service images

[ddadaal]

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The repo to reproduce this problem: https://github.com/ddadaal/github-actions-docker-compose-build-context-issue

This repo has the following structure:

.
├── .github
│   └── workflows
│       └── test.yaml
└── nested
    ├── docker-compose.yaml
    └── Dockerfile

where the docker-compose.yaml defines a service that uses a image built from nested/Dockerfile.

We assume that docker-compose.yaml can only be used from the root directory of the repo, so the docker-compose.yaml is defined as

version: "3"

services:
  service1:
    image: service1-image
    build:
      context: nested

So the service can be started using

sudo docker compose -f nested/docker-compose.yaml up -d

It works fine locally:

~/Code/github-actions-docker-compose on master                                                         at 17:51:51
❯ docker compose version
Docker Compose version v2.19.1
~/Code/github-actions-docker-compose on master                                                         at 17:48:03
❯ sudo docker compose -f nested/docker-compose.yaml build --no-cache
[+] Building 0.2s (5/5) FINISHED                                                                                   
 => [service1 internal] load .dockerignore                                                                    0.0s
 => => transferring context: 2B                                                                               0.0s
 => [service1 internal] load build definition from Dockerfile                                                 0.0s
 => => transferring dockerfile: 53B                                                                           0.0s
 => [service1 internal] load metadata for docker.io/library/alpine:3.18                                       0.0s
 => CACHED [service1 1/1] FROM docker.io/library/alpine:3.18                                                  0.0s
 => [service1] exporting to image                                                                             0.0s
 => => exporting layers                                                                                       0.0s
 => => writing image sha256:ad8e26912d6f13f9cc91c7cd7a118a4649fee37df31b009edc3127a03995ccbd                  0.0s
 => => naming to docker.io/library/service1-image                                                             0.0s

~/Code/github-actions-docker-compose on master                                                         at 17:48:12
❯ sudo docker compose -f nested/docker-compose.yaml up -d           
[+] Running 1/1
 ✔ Container nested-service1-1  Started 

Then, the repo defines a workflow that calls exactly the command above (docker compose -f nested/docker-compose.yaml up -d), but it failed to run ( https://github.com/ddadaal/github-actions-docker-compose-build-context-issue/actions/runs/5667130914/job/15355241715 ).

The error is unable to prepare context: path "/home/runner/work/github-actions-docker-compose-build-context-issue/github-actions-docker-compose-build-context-issue/nested/nested" not found. It seems the path build path is wrong. It should be nested but actually isnested/nested.

This bug only occurs starting from 2pm (+8 UTC) of 2023/7/26. It works fine before.

[Beargruug]

The error message says, "unable to prepare context: path '/home/runner/work/github-actions-docker-compose-build-context-issue/github-actions-docker-compose-build-context-issue/nested/nested' not found." It seems like the build path is incorrect. Instead of using "nested" as the build context, it's trying to use "nested/nested," which doesn't exist and causes the failure.

To fix this, we need to adjust the GitHub Actions workflow file. Specifically, we need to specify the correct build context in the workflow.

Here's what we can do:

1. Go to the ".github/workflows" directory in the repository, and find the "test.yaml" file.

2. Inside the "test.yaml" file, we'll make a few changes to ensure the build context is set correctly.

3. We'll add a "working-directory" field under the "Build and Run Docker Compose" step and set it to "./nested". This tells GitHub Actions to run the Docker Compose commands from the "nested" directory.

4. Once we've made the changes, we can commit the updated "test.yaml" file back to the repository.

The updated part of the "test.yaml" file should look like this:

# ... other steps ...

  - name: Build and Run Docker Compose
    working-directory: ./nested
    run: |
      sudo docker-compose build --no-cache
      sudo docker-compose up -d

# ... other steps ...

By specifying the correct working directory, the build context will be set to "nested," and the Docker Compose setup should run successfully without the "nested/nested" path issue.

I hope this will help you!

[ddadaal]

This is what happens if docker compose is run under nested directory instead of root directory:

❯ sudo docker compose build   
[+] Building 0.0s (0/0)                                                                                            
unable to prepare context: path "nested" not found

The configuration file specifies that the context which the image is built on is nested relative to cwd, so the configuration file can only be used under root directory so that the final path is correctly <root>/nested.

[ddadaal]

OK I figured it out. The docker compose docs states that the build context is relative to the compose file, not cwd. It is still strange though why my previous config worked.

[dimitarvp]

What did you end up doing exactly? I am having the same issue as your original one and I am not sure what to do. The docs you linked to didn't enlighten me either. Could you show a diff, please?