[Maintenance] Enable CI Workflows to Re-use Setup Steps

[cliu123]

Is your request related to a problem?

The request comes from a PR review comment.

What solution would you like?

The request is about enabling different CI workflows to re-use the setup steps.

What alternatives have you considered?
No alternatives for now.

Do you have any additional context?
Github does not have reusable jobs at all. It has reusable workflow instead. But in order to re-use those setup steps, the steps need to be reusable.

[cwperks]

[Triage] @RyanL1997 Can you please update the issue with your findings?

[stephen-crawford]

Is this info helpful? https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-workflows/storing-workflow-data-as-artifacts

[RyanL1997]

I have tried to build a reusable workflow for core setup (https://github.com/RyanL1997/security-dashboards-plugin/actions/runs/3330166123). Even the workflow can be reused, we cannot pass the up running server through the workflow.

[peternied]

@RyanL1997 you are right dependent workflows won't work

However, I think action [1] will provide this functionality, I recently merged a change that uses one of these composite actions for the dashboard checkout process [2].

• [1] https://docs.github.com/en/actions/creating-actions/creating-a-composite-action
• [2] Support CI for Windows and MacOS #1164