How to Debug GitHub Actions Failures Without Losing Your Mind

How to Debug GitHub Actions Failures Without Losing Your Mind GitHub Actions is great until it fails silently, shows a cryptic error, or works on your machine but not in CI. Here's the systematic way to debug it. Step 1: Read the Actual Error Not the job name. Not "Process exited with code 1." The actual error. # Add this to any failing step to get full output - name : Your step run : your-command env : NODE_ENV : test continue-on-error : false # Make sure this is NOT true Click on the failing step in GitHub's UI and expand it. The real error is usually 3-4 lines below where the job says it failed. Step 2: Reproduce Locally with Act Act runs GitHub Actions locally: # Install act brew install act # Mac # or curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nektos/act/master/install.sh | sudo bash # Run your workflow locally act push # Run a specific job act push --job build # With secrets act push --secret-file .secrets Create a .secrets file (add to .gitignore): GITHUB_TOKEN = your_token_here DAT