Setup and start DDEV action

This GitHub action starts DDEV with your project's configuration from the directory .ddev.

The idea is to reuse the same environment that you are maintaining for development anyways for automated acceptance testing, thus saving on maintaining a separate CI-configuration.

Any additional services that you might have configured will be started and any post-start hooks etc. will be run.

Example GitHub workflow

on: [push, pull_request]

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v5
      - name: Setup DDEV
        uses: ddev/github-action-setup-ddev@v1

      # example: composer install
      - run: ddev composer install

      # example: populate database
      - run: ddev import-db --file=data/db.sql.gz

      # ... and so on. For example:
      - run: ddev exec bin/myAcceptanceTests.sh
      - run: ddev exec make tests
      - run: ddev composer ci:tests
      - run: ddev composer ci:tests:acceptance:${{ matrix.browser }}
      - run: ddev yarn --frozen-lockfile --no-progress --non-interactive && ddev yarn mocha-tests
      - run: ddev npm ci && ddev npm run mocha-tests
      - run: test 'test for expected output' = "$(curl --silent https://my-ddev-project.ddev.site)"

      # use different PHP version in a test matrix
      - run: |
          sed -i -e 's/^php_version:.*/php_version: ${{ matrix.php-version }}/g' .ddev/config.yaml
          ddev start

Options

ddevDir

Path to your DDEV project. This path needs to contain the .ddev/ directory.

default: . (root directory)

      - name: Setup DDEV
        uses: ddev/github-action-setup-ddev@v1
        with:
          ddevDir: ".devbox"
      - name: 'You need to switch to that directory to use the `ddev` command'
        run: ddev composer install
        working-directory: .devbox

autostart

Starts your DDEV project immediately.

default: true

      - uses: ddev/github-action-setup-ddev@v1
        with:
          autostart: false

version

Install a specific ddev version. The version must be available in ddev's apt repository.

default: latest

      - uses: ddev/github-action-setup-ddev@v1
        with:
          version: 1.24.7

installScriptUrl

URL to the DDEV installation script. This allows you to specify a custom or alternative source for the DDEV installation script.

default: https://ddev.com/install.sh

      - uses: ddev/github-action-setup-ddev@v1
        with:
          installScriptUrl: "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ddev/ddev/v1.22.4/scripts/install_ddev.sh"

This option is useful for:

• Using a specific version of the installation script from a tagged release
• Testing with a development version from a specific branch
• Using a forked or modified version of the installation script
• Working with air-gapped environments that require local script hosting

Example with custom script source:

      - name: Setup DDEV with custom installation script
        uses: ddev/github-action-setup-ddev@v1
        with:
          installScriptUrl: "https://my-company.com/scripts/custom_ddev_install.sh"
          version: "v1.24.7"

Common recipes

SSH keys

If your workflow needs to reach remote destinations that require private SSH keys, we recommend adding SSH keys that you have entered as GitHub "secrets":

      - name: Setup SSH keys
        run: |
          mkdir -p .ddev/homeadditions/.ssh
          echo "${{ secrets.MY_KEY }}" > .ddev/homeadditions/.ssh/id_rsa
          chmod 700 .ddev/homeadditions/.ssh
          chmod 600 .ddev/homeadditions/.ssh/id_rsa
      - name 'optional: set up host keys'
        run: |
          echo "${{ secrets.MY_KNOWN_HOSTS }}" > .ddev/homeadditions/.ssh/known_hosts
      - name: Setup DDEV
        uses: ddev/github-action-setup-ddev@v1

Contact

For bugs and feature requests use the GitHub bug tracker.

Pull requests are very welcome.