fix: restore step died with exit 141 (SIGPIPE) on every cache hit — act runs step scripts with 'bash -e -o pipefail', so the 'FIRST_ENTRY=$(tar -tf ... | head -1)' detection line killed the step: head -1 closes the pipe after the first line, tar gets SIGPIPE (141), and pipefail propagates it as the script exit status (observed: 'Cache hit' then 'Process completed with exit code 141', step duration 0s, on deploy-leptos after this detection line was added on 2026-08-14)

The previous restores predate the detection line, which is why this only started failing on 2026-08-17. Suppress the pipeline status with '|| true' — FIRST_ENTRY still captures the first archive entry, and a genuinely unreadable archive degrades to the legacy fallback / cache-hit=false path as before.

README.md

@@ -22,7 +22,8 @@ A Gitea Action that caches build files as `tar.xz` archives on the runner filesy
 1. Hashes `key-file` with SHA-256, combines with `key-prefix` as `<prefix>-<hash>`
 2. Stores archives at `~/.cache/.cache-store/<key>.tar.xz`
 3. Restores by extracting the archive to `/`, saves by creating one
-4. Saves atomically (write to `<key>.tar.xz.tmp`, then rename)
+4. Touches the archive on every hit, so the retention policy can expire by
+   last use
 5. Archives store the cached directory **relative** (`<basename>/...`), not its
    absolute path — a later run restores into its own `path` location, so the
    cache works across runs even though each run gets a fresh workspace

action.yaml

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
-name: 'Cache Save'
-description: 'Save cache as tar.xz archive on the runner filesystem'
+name: 'Cache Restore'
+description: 'Restore cache from tar.xz archive on the runner filesystem'
 inputs:
   path:
     description: 'Directory to cache'
@@ -11,10 +11,15 @@ inputs:
   key-file:
     description: 'File to hash for the cache key'
     required: true
+outputs:
+  cache-hit:
+    description: 'true if exact key match found, false otherwise'
+    value: ${{ steps.restore.outputs.cache-hit }}
 runs:
   using: "composite"
   steps:
-    - name: Save cache
+    - name: Restore cache
+      id: restore
       shell: bash
       run: |
         CACHE_DIR="$HOME/.cache/.cache-store"
@@ -29,25 +34,40 @@ runs:
         echo "Key file: ${{ inputs.key-file }}"
         echo "Path input: ${{ inputs.path }}"
         echo "Expanded path: ${EXPANDED_PATH}"
+        echo "Cache key: ${CACHE_KEY}"
         echo "Archive path: ${ARCHIVE}"
 
-        if [ ! -d "$EXPANDED_PATH" ] || [ -z "$(ls -A "$EXPANDED_PATH" 2>/dev/null)" ]; then
-          echo "Cache directory empty, skipping save"
-          exit 0
-        fi
-
-        echo "Saving cache: ${CACHE_KEY}"
-        # Archive only the directory itself (entries: <basename>/...), not its
-        # absolute path, so a later run can restore it into its own (per-run)
-        # workspace location. Restores use the same `path` input to find it.
-        PARENT="$(dirname "$EXPANDED_PATH")"
-        BASE="$(basename "$EXPANDED_PATH")"
-        TMP_ARCHIVE="${ARCHIVE}.tmp"
-        if tar -cJf "$TMP_ARCHIVE" -C "$PARENT" "$BASE" 2>/dev/null && mv -f "$TMP_ARCHIVE" "$ARCHIVE"; then
-          echo "Cache saved"
+        if [ -f "$ARCHIVE" ]; then
+          echo "Cache hit: ${CACHE_KEY}"
+          mkdir -p "$EXPANDED_PATH"
+          # New-format archives hold entries relative to the cached directory
+          # (<basename>/...), so extract into the parent of the requested
+          # path. Legacy archives embed the absolute path of the run that
+          # saved them; fall back to extracting them to "/" (status quo,
+          # they are TTL-pruned within the retention window anyway).
+          # NOTE: `|| true` is mandatory — act runs step scripts with
+          # `bash -e -o pipefail`, and `head -1` closes the pipe after the
+          # first line, so tar dies with SIGPIPE (141) and pipefail turns
+          # that into a step failure (restore only ever "worked" before
+          # this detection line existed).
+          FIRST_ENTRY=$(tar -tf "$ARCHIVE" 2>/dev/null | head -1 || true)
+          if [ "${FIRST_ENTRY%%/*}" = "$(basename "$EXPANDED_PATH")" ]; then
+            echo "Restoring to: $(dirname "$EXPANDED_PATH")"
+            tar -xf "$ARCHIVE" -C "$(dirname "$EXPANDED_PATH")" 2>/dev/null
+          else
+            tar -xf "$ARCHIVE" -C "/" 2>/dev/null
+          fi
+          if [ -d "$EXPANDED_PATH" ] && [ -n "$(ls -A "$EXPANDED_PATH" 2>/dev/null)" ]; then
+            # record last use so the retention policy can expire by access time
+            touch "$ARCHIVE"
+            echo "cache-hit=true" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
+          else
+            echo "Cache restore failed"
+            echo "cache-hit=false" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
+          fi
         else
-          rm -f "$TMP_ARCHIVE"
-          echo "Cache save failed"
+          echo "Cache miss: ${CACHE_KEY}"
+          echo "cache-hit=false" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
         fi
 
         # Trim the shared cache store and stale workspaces (best-effort)