action optimizations

[derekmisler]

This PR significantly enhances the cagent-action with improvements to reliability, performance, and user experience while maintaining full backward compatibility.

🎯 Summary

• Performance: Binary caching reduces typical run time by 10-30 seconds
• Reliability: Retry logic handles transient network failures gracefully
• Visibility: Job summaries and new outputs make results easily accessible
• Control: Timeout prevents runaway agents from consuming resources
• Debugging: Debug mode helps diagnose issues quickly

✨ New Features

Binary Caching

• Caches cagent and mcp-gateway binaries using actions/cache
• Cache keys based on OS and version (e.g., cagent-Linux-v1.6.6)
• Dramatically reduces execution time on repeated workflow runs

Retry Logic & Verification

• Downloads retry up to 3 times on failure with 2-second delays
• Binary verification ensures downloads aren't corrupted
• Clear error messages if all retry attempts fail

Timeout Control

- uses: docker/cagent-action@v1
  with:
    agent: jeanlaurent/pr-reviewer
    timeout: 600  # 10 minute timeout

Debug Mode

- uses: docker/cagent-action@v1
  with:
    agent: jeanlaurent/pr-reviewer
    debug: true  # Enables verbose logging

GitHub Actions Job Summary

Automatically creates a formatted summary in the Actions UI:

• Agent execution details in a markdown table
• Visual status indicators (✅ success, ❌ failed, ⏱️ timeout)
• Expandable section with last 100 lines of output

New Outputs

- id: agent-run
  uses: docker/cagent-action@v1

- run: |
    echo "Took ${{ steps.agent-run.outputs.execution-time }}s"
    echo "Version: ${{ steps.agent-run.outputs.cagent-version }}"
    echo "MCP: ${{ steps.agent-run.outputs.mcp-gateway-installed }}"

🐛 Fixes

• Fixed: Missing github-token input definition (was referenced but not defined)
• Fixed: MCP Gateway installation logic now correctly uses mcp-gateway boolean
• Improved: Version validation provides clear error messages before attempting downloads

📝 New Inputs

Input	Description	Default
github-token	GitHub token for API access	${{ github.token }}
timeout	Timeout in seconds (0 = no timeout)	0
debug	Enable verbose logging	false

📊 New Outputs

Output	Description
output-file	Path to the output log file (was missing from docs)
cagent-version	Version of cagent that was used
mcp-gateway-installed	Whether mcp-gateway was installed
execution-time	Agent execution time in seconds

🔄 Breaking Changes

None! All changes are backward compatible. Existing workflows will continue to work without modification.

📚 Documentation

• Updated README with all new inputs and outputs
• Added examples showing how to use new features
• Added "Using Outputs" section demonstrating practical use cases

🧪 Testing

Tested with existing test workflows:

• ✅ Successful agent execution
• ✅ Invalid agent failure handling
• ✅ Binary caching behavior
• ✅ Timeout functionality
• ✅ Job summary generation

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[derekmisler]

Example output:

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR enhances the cagent-action with performance optimizations, reliability improvements, and better observability while maintaining backward compatibility. The changes introduce binary caching to reduce execution time, retry logic for network failures, configurable timeouts, debug mode, and automated job summaries.

Key changes:

• Binary caching using GitHub Actions cache to avoid repeated downloads
• Retry logic with verification for binary downloads
• New inputs for timeout control, debug mode, and explicit github-token parameter
• New outputs for execution metrics (execution-time, cagent-version, mcp-gateway-installed)
• Automated job summary generation with formatted execution details

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

File	Description
action.yml	Adds version validation, binary caching, retry logic, timeout support, debug mode, and job summary generation; defines new inputs (github-token, timeout, debug) and outputs (cagent-version, mcp-gateway-installed, execution-time)
README.md	Documents new inputs (timeout, debug), outputs (output-file, cagent-version, mcp-gateway-installed, execution-time), and adds usage examples

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[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 5 comments.

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