Ghost provides a configuration and a way to spin up tiny machines from your CLI, but designed in a way where GitHub Actions doesn’t have to be the backend. It’s the same effect as running gh create-repo, setting a workflow, and gh run workflow (gh is the official GH CLI). You can do the same with tmate and gh from the CLI now, this just has better devX and uses real SSH so you can agent forward to clone your repos like you would locally.

It is not “abusing” GH Actions nor “promote” that, nor “volunteering the money of others” (?), it is helping you use the Actions minutes on your account better.

For me it makes GH Actions, which I’ve always loved, way more useful, by saving time in the setup of these common workflows I use all the time: debugging a failure in CI. Getting an agent to iterate directly in the CI machine. Manual build and smoke on different OS, etc.

I had this idea for a while and was waiting for GH or someone to release an easier CLI for this, for a year or two, but they didn’t so I built it myself.