"uses: sh" not working in dockerized Popper about popper HOT 2 OPEN

thanks for reporting this @wtraylor! The motivation behind the install.sh script is to address problems that some users have when installing via pip. For users not familiar with python or how pip works, the curl | sh method is convenient, as they have already installed docker (whose installer has better UX than pip), so using install.sh is straight-forward in this scenario.

Regarding the problems with uses: sh inside a container, the specific example can be solved by doing:

steps:
- uses: docker://docker:19.03.10
  args: ["--version"]

More fundamentally, one of the main goals of having container-native pipelines is to make them reproducible. By using sh to invoke commands that are expected to be available in the host, the probability of having a pipeline fail is higher. This is why we note on the documentation that the use of uses: sh should be minimized. Other additional "best practices" for steps with uses: sh would be to 1) only reference paths that are within the workspace or bind-mounted folders (via the dir option); and 2) only invoke POSIX/UNIX commands. These don't guarantee reproducibility but minimize errors. Maybe we should add this to the docs as well.

does this make sense?

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does this make sense?

Yes, that makes sense. I see that it is very important to provide an easy installation method through install.sh. On the other hand, as long as uses: sh is in Popper’s feature set (whether using it is good practice or not), it should just work, no matter by which method Popper has been installed. I think that is very important.

One way out of the dilemma would be to fail with an error message if Popper running in Docker enconunters uses: sh and kindly ask the user to install Popper through PIP.

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