ciwalk

Run your CI pipeline locally, pause at any step, drop into a live shell to inspect or fix state, then retry / continue — no more commit-push-pray.

uv tool install ciwalk   # or: pipx install ciwalk
ciwalk run examples/broken-ci.yml --pause-on-fail

Why

CI feedback is still mostly blind: edit YAML → commit → push → wait → read logs → guess. Tools like act run Actions locally but are still all-or-nothing. ciwalk keeps the container alive, opens a shell at the failure point, and lets you resume.

Install

Requires: Python 3.11+ and Docker (daemon running).

From PyPI (recommended, after release)

uv tool install ciwalk
# or
pipx install ciwalk
# or
pip install ciwalk

From GitHub (no wait for PyPI)

uv tool install git+https://github.com/kiwi-07/ciwalk.git
# or
pipx install git+https://github.com/kiwi-07/ciwalk.git

From a clone (dev)

git clone https://github.com/kiwi-07/ciwalk.git && cd ciwalk
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Standalone binary

GitHub Releases (starting with v0.1.0) attach a platform binary you can download and run without installing Python packages — still needs Docker on the machine.

chmod +x ./ciwalk
./ciwalk run examples/hello.yml

Usage

ciwalk run <workflow.yml> [OPTIONS]

ciwalk cleanup           # remove leftover ciwalk containers (e.g. after kill -9)
ciwalk cleanup --dry-run # list matching containers without removing them

Pause flow

1. A step fails (with --pause-on-fail) or you hit --breakpoint.
2. ciwalk attaches an interactive shell inside the same container (same bash flags, env, and working-directory as the step).
3. Inspect / fix (mounted workspace is live on the host too).
4. exit (or Ctrl+D) → choose retry | continue | abort.
5. continue after a failure still exits non-zero (the failed step stays failed).

Demo

ciwalk run examples/broken-ci.yml --pause-on-fail

Matches examples/broken-ci.yml: checkout + Prepare workspace pass; Require marker file fails (build/MARKER missing). In the shell:

touch build/MARKER
exit

Then choose retry. The step passes, Finish runs, and the job completes.

Recording source: docs/demo.cast (replay with asciinema play docs/demo.cast).

Supported GitHub Actions subset (MVP)

• Single job per run (--job if needed)
• runs-on: ubuntu-latest (or omit)
• Steps: run, name, env, working-directory
• uses: actions/checkout@* → bind-mount workspace (no network clone)
• ${{ inputs.* }} / ${{ env.* }} string substitution (--input KEY=VALUE)
• Any other ${{ }} (or unknown inputs.* / env.* key) → error, not empty-string rewrite
• Jobs that are reusable workflow calls, or use job-level needs: / if: → SKIPPED (loud, non-zero exit — never silent pass)

Not yet: matrix/parallel jobs, secrets, full expression language (github.*, secrets.*, …), arbitrary marketplace actions, GitLab/Circle/Jenkins, caching.

Roadmap / want to help?

Gaps above are intentional MVP cuts, not forever. Prefer contributions around expression support (github.*), matrix builds, and broader uses: allowlisting — file an issue or PR on develop. Good first issues welcome once labeled.

Development

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest

Linux smoke (T1–T4)

Native Linux Docker bind-mount behavior can differ from Docker Desktop on Mac. CI runs this on ubuntu-latest:

scripts/linux-smoke.sh

License

MIT