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An action cannot set its environment or working directory #708
Description
Observed
mcpp::action carries an argument vector and nothing else. An action cannot set an environment variable or choose its working directory.
mcpp-plugins 0.13–0.14 built a helper program (mcpp-deps) only to supply these two things to vcpkg and to cmake -E tar. The helper then reached consumers' manifests as tools = ["mcpp-deps"]. Because it is a host tool, it also paid for #705 and #707: GalTranslPP's emit build-database took 53 minutes, because emit built this tool in full.
0.15.0 (mcpp-community/mcpp-plugins#32) removes the helper. vcpkg happens to accept every setting as a flag (--vcpkg-root, --disable-metrics, --x-buildtrees-root, ...), and CMake work runs as cmake -P over a script the build program writes. Neither route is available to a tool that reads only its environment or its working directory.
Request
Let an action state env entries and a cwd, recorded in the action's fingerprint like its arguments, so a plugin can run such a tool directly without a helper program.
Activity
#708: an action's cwd is a plain absolute path on Windows
2026.9.27.1: #704-#716 fixed, feature tools, artifacts edges, payload…
speak-agent commentedon Sep 27, 2026
Fixed in mcpp 2026.9.27.1 (#719, merged as b439fd9), released on GitHub and mirrored to GitCode (xlings-res/mcpp), and published in the xim index (openxlings/xim-pkgindex#894).
Verified after the release with the published binary inside an xlings subos sandbox (
xlings subos use eco-0927 --sandbox --cmd ...), mcpp configured for the CN mirror in a freshMCPP_HOME:799_an_action_runs_with_its_env_and_cwd: the command sees the variable, runs in the package-relativecwd, its declared output lands where declared, and a changed value re-runs the action. PASS on Linux here; on Windows the PR's CI caught and fixedcwdbeing entered in the\\?\form, and the Windows e2e jobs pass.