In case you don't recognize the syntax, this is HCL and was the system in use before it was changed to YML. This change seems to have been (partially) a result of being purchased by Microsoft since the HCL version ran on Google Cloud while the new one used Azure instances.
> However, I realized I could get around that issue by forking the actions/docker repo and pushing a commit to my fork (since GitHub shares commits between forks and parent repositories).
Visual Studio Online (now Azure DevOps if it didn't change again) used to have a wizard/UI to create CI scripts. It was very handy and allow to create them quickly.
One day they imposed the YAML version (probably close or the same used now for GH actions) and it has been a huge pain to use: all discoverability is lost, and it's now a painful cycle of searching documentation with a search engine, try something, commit, lose build minutes, wait it to fail, restart at step one. I want the wizard back.
I totally agree.. I like the idea of YAML and source control for pipelines, but unless you're already very familiar with the system it is much slower. Fortunately there's a "Use the classic editor to create a pipeline without YAML" option to use the previous system.
The ui is no longer there, but there is indeed a wizard for yaml whereby you can select a task and have it generate the required yaml for you. The very cool thing is round tripping works as well.
