Official action to run PackSquash, a Minecraft resource and data pack optimizer, in a GitHub Actions workflow, which allows it to better integrate in continuous integration processes.

These parameters are specific to the action, and the only ones you may need to set if you want to use the default PackSquash options.

The parameters in this section are used to automatically generate an options file for PackSquash to use. You can modify them if you want to change what options PackSquash uses.

The action also supports additional parameters that might come in handy for more specific use cases. It shouldn't be necessary to set them for most circumstances, though.

This section contains some example GitHub Actions workflow files to achieve common continuous integration tasks with this action.

This workflow will execute PackSquash for every push to the repository, generating an artifact with the optimized pack for any change. The workflow expects the pack to be at the repository root. The generated artifact can be downloaded by users with read access to the repository via the GitHub web UI or CLI. It can also be downloaded in other steps or workflows via the actions/download-artifact or dawidd6/action-download-artifact actions.

Repository root
├── .github
│   └── workflows
│       └── packsquash.yml
├── assets
│   └── ...
└── pack.mcmeta

name: Optimize resource pack
on: [push]
jobs:
  packsquash:
    name: Optimize resource pack
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Clone repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0 # A non-shallow repository clone is required
      - name: Run PackSquash
        uses: ComunidadAylas/PackSquash-action@v3

In some cases, the directory where the pack is does not match the repository root. You can specify a directory other than the repository root by changing the path input parameter.

This is useful for repositories that contain several packs (monorepos) and isolating the pack from the rest of the repository, preventing miscellaneous repository files from being considered as pack files by PackSquash.

Repository root
├── .github
│   └── workflows
│       └── packsquash.yml
└── pack
    ├── assets
    │   └── ...
    └── pack.mcmeta

name: Optimize resource pack
on: [push]
jobs:
  packsquash:
    name: Optimize resource pack
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Clone repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0 # A non-shallow repository clone is required
      - name: Run PackSquash
        uses: ComunidadAylas/PackSquash-action@v3
        with:
          path: pack

The previous examples can easily be expanded to create releases automatically by downloading the generated artifact and uploading it again as a release.

This workflow creates a new tag and release named action-v{number} for every push event, which is triggered by commits and other tags.

name: Optimize resource pack
on: [push]
jobs:
  packsquash:
    name: Optimize resource pack
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Clone repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0 # A non-shallow repository clone is required
      - name: Run PackSquash
        uses: ComunidadAylas/PackSquash-action@v3
      - name: Download optimized pack
        uses: actions/download-artifact@v3
        with:
          name: Optimized pack
      - name: Tag and create release
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v1
        with:
          tag_name: action-v${{ github.run_number }}
          files: pack.zip

This workflow creates a new release whenever a tag is pushed. The release will have the same name as the tag.

name: Optimize resource pack
on:
  push:
    tags:
      - '**'
jobs:
  packsquash:
    name: Optimize resource pack
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Clone repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0 # A non-shallow repository clone is required
      - name: Run PackSquash
        uses: ComunidadAylas/PackSquash-action@v3
      - name: Download optimized pack
        uses: actions/download-artifact@v3
        with:
          name: Optimized pack
      - name: Create release
        uses: softprops/action-gh-release@v1
        with:
          files: pack.zip

When developing in private repositories it is not possible for vanilla Minecraft clients to download resource packs from release artifacts, as they lack the required authentication credentials. A common solution is to upload releases to an external web server directly from a GitHub Actions workflow via SSH.

⚠️ Keep in mind that just uploading files to the web server might not be enough to make players download the new version the next time they connect. The Minecraft server should be configured with the appropriate resource pack ZIP file URL and hash each time the pack is updated. Otherwise, clients will receive stale information and may decide to use the copy they have downloaded already. This example omits that part on purpose because the precise way of doing it (running plugin commands via RCON, modifying the server.properties file and restarting the server, etc.) is environment-specific.

This example workflow uses the following secrets, which can be set in the repository settings.

name: Deploy via SSH
on: [workflow_dispatch]
jobs:
  deploy:
    name: Deploy
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Download latest released pack
        uses: dsaltares/[email protected]
        with:
          file: pack.zip
          target: pack.zip
      - name: Rename pack file
        # An unique name guarantees an unique URL. Different URLs
        # compel Minecraft clients to download packs again, but
        # make sure to read and understand the warning above before
        # doing this in production!
        run: mv pack.zip pack-${{ github.run_number }}.zip
      - name: Deploy pack file
        uses: appleboy/[email protected]
        with:
          host: ${{ secrets.SSH_HOST }}
          username: ${{ secrets.SSH_USERNAME }}
          key: ${{ secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}
          port: ${{ secrets.SSH_PORT }}
          source: pack-${{ github.run_number }}.zip
          target: ${{ secrets.DEPLOY_DIRECTORY }}

Some users are creating template repositories with this action, making it very easy to get up and running with the development of your very own pack. We have curated a list of handy repository templates below, but feel free to send pull requests to add new reusable templates here!

• sya-ri/MinecraftResourcePackTemplate (in Japanese): a template repository for Minecraft resource packs that uses PackSquash to bundle them in optimized ZIP files. Each commit is optimized to a ZIP artifact, and a release is made when a new tag is pushed.
• osfanbuff63/minecraft-datapack: a template repository for vanilla Minecraft data packs that uses PackSquash to bundle them in optimized ZIP files. Each commit is optimized to a ZIP artifact. No releases or deployments are made.

This action may store in a cache the encryption key needed to read file modification times from the ZIP files PackSquash generates. Therefore, such encryption key can be exposed to anyone that has access to the repository. However, this is not a concern in practical scenarios, because the file modification times are generated from the commit history, so having access to the repository already provides this information. If for some reason you do not want this behavior, you can set never_store_squash_times to true, although that will likely slow down PackSquash. For more information about the implications of caching potentially-sensitive data, please read the GitHub documentation.

Please check out the PackSquash repository for contact information.

The original author of this action is @sya-ri. Later, it was incubated as an open source project by the same team behind PackSquash.