GitHub - mlocati/inspect-visualstudio: A GitHub Action that inspects Visual Studio / Visual C++ environment variables (optionally converting to Cygwin or MSYS2 paths)

Inspect Visual Studio

inspect-visualstudio is a GitHub Action that inspects the Visual Studio build environment on a Windows runner.

Instead of invoking vcvarsall.bat in each build step, this action runs it once (with your selected options), computes the resulting environment-variable delta, and exposes the values as action outputs.

This makes it easy to:

Discover the Visual Studio and MSVC toolchain paths selected on the runner.
Reuse the resolved include/lib/path environment values in later workflow steps.
Keep workflows deterministic by pinning architecture, SDK version, and platform type.

Example usage

- name: Inspect Visual Studio tools
	id: inspect-vs
	uses: mlocati/inspect-visualstudio@v1
	with:
		version: '2022'
		architecture: 'amd64'
		platform-type: 'uwp'
		windows-sdk-version: '10.0.26100.0'
		spectre-mode: 'false'
		process-paths: 'windows'
		windows-paths: |
			PATH
		cygwin-paths: |
			INCLUDE
		msys2-paths: |
			LIB
			LIBPATH

- name: Print selected toolchain
	shell: pwsh
	run: |
		"VS path: ${{ steps.inspect-vs.outputs.vs-installdir }}"
		"MSVC version: ${{ steps.inspect-vs.outputs.vctools-version }}"
		"SDK version: ${{ steps.inspect-vs.outputs.windows-sdk-version }}"

Inputs

`version`

Required: No
Default: latest
Allowed values:
- latest (or empty): pick the latest available Visual Studio.
- A Visual Studio year from the supported map: 2005, 2008, ..., 2022, 2026.
- A numeric Visual Studio version: 8, 9, ..., 17, 17.
Examples:
- version: latest
- version: '2022'
- version: '17'

`architecture`

Required: No
Default: Auto-detected from runner architecture
Allowed values (canonical):
- x86
- amd64
- x86_amd64
- x86_arm
- x86_arm64
- amd64_x86
- amd64_arm
- amd64_arm64
Also accepted aliases:
- For x86: 32, i386, i686, ia32, win32
- For amd64: 64, x64, x86_64, win64
- Hyphens are accepted and normalized (for example x86-amd64)
Examples:
- architecture: x86
- architecture: amd64
- architecture: amd64_arm64

`platform-type`

Required: No
Default: Empty (classic desktop)
Allowed values:
- Empty / omitted
- uwp
- store (treated as uwp)
Examples:
- platform-type: ''
- platform-type: uwp
- platform-type: store

`windows-sdk-version`

Required: No
Default: Auto-selected by vcvarsall.bat
Allowed values:
- Empty / omitted
- major.minor (for example 10.0)
- major.minor.build.revision (for example 10.0.26100.0)
Examples:
- windows-sdk-version: '10.0'
- windows-sdk-version: '10.0.26100.0'

`spectre-mode`

Required: No
Default: false
Allowed values: true, false
Examples:
- spectre-mode: 'false'
- spectre-mode: 'true'

`process-paths`

Required: No
Default: Empty (no processing)
Allowed values: windows, cygwin, msys2

By default the paths you'll find in the output are not processed.

You can:

specify to normalize them, taking out non existing paths by using process-paths: windows
specify to normalize them, taking out non existing paths and converting paths to Cygwin paths (/cygdrive/c/path) by using process-paths: cygwin
specify to normalize them, taking out non existing paths and converting paths to MSYS2 paths (/c/path) by using process-paths: msys2

The windows-paths, cygwin-paths, and msys2-paths options override this setting on a per-variable basis.

`windows-paths`

Required: No
Default: Empty (no processing)
Allowed values: newline-separated list of environment variable names

You can use this input to specify a list or variable names whose values should be normalized (that is, non existing paths will be taken out).

This option overrides process-paths.

`cygwin-paths`

Required: No
Default: Empty (no processing)
Allowed values: newline-separated list of environment variable names

You can use this input to specify a list or variable names whose values should be normalized (that is, non existing paths will be taken out), and converted to Cygwin syntax (/cygdrive/c/path/...)

This option overrides process-paths.

`msys2-paths`

Required: No
Default: Empty (no processing)
Allowed values: newline-separated list of environment variable names

You can use this input to specify a list or variable names whose values should be normalized (that is, non existing paths will be taken out), and converted to MSYS2 syntax (/c/path/...)

This option overrides process-paths.

`if-not-windows`

Required: No
Default: fail
Allowed values:
- ignore: silently skip inspection.
- warn: log a warning and skip inspection.
- fail: stop the action with an error.
Examples:
- if-not-windows: fail
- if-not-windows: warn
- if-not-windows: ignore

`debug`

Required: No
Default: false
Allowed values: true, false
Examples:
- debug: 'false'
- debug: 'true'

Outputs

All outputs are available as steps.<step-id>.outputs.<name>.

`vcvarsall-path`

Path to the vcvarsall.bat file used.

Example: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsall.bat

`path`

Semicolon-separated directories added to PATH by vcvarsall.bat.

Example: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\bin\Hostx64\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\10.0.26100.0\x64

`include`

Semicolon-separated INCLUDE value.

Example: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\include;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Include\10.0.26100.0\ucrt

`lib`

Semicolon-separated LIB value.

Example: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\lib\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Lib\10.0.26100.0\ucrt\x64

`libpath`

Semicolon-separated LIBPATH value.

Example: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\lib\x64\store\references;C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319

`vc-installdir`

Root Visual C++ directory.

Example: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\

`vs-installdir`

Root Visual Studio installation directory.

Example: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\

`vs-version`

Visual Studio version used.

Example: 17.0

`vctools-installdir`

Root directory of Visual C++ tools.

Example: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\

`vctools-version`

Visual C++ tools version.

Example: 14.44.35207

`windows-sdk-dir`

Root Windows SDK directory.

Example: C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\

`windows-sdk-version`

Windows SDK version.

Example: 10.0.26100.0

`windows-sdk-lib-version`

Windows SDK libraries version.

Example: 10.0.26100.0\

`ucrt-version`

Universal C Runtime version.

Example: 10.0.26100.0

`vcmd-arg-tgt-arch`

Target architecture selected by vcvars.

Example: x64

`vcmd-arg-host-arch`

Host architecture selected by vcvars.

Example: x64

`platform`

Resolved target platform.

Example: x64

`all`

JSON object containing all environment variables set by vcvarsall.bat.

Example:

{"Path":"C:\\Program Files\\...","INCLUDE":"C:\\Program Files\\...","LIB":"C:\\Program Files\\...","VCTOOLSVERSION":"14.44.35207"}

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 16 Commits
.github/workflows		.github/workflows
dist		dist
src		src
.gitignore		.gitignore
LICENSE.txt		LICENSE.txt
README.md		README.md
action.yml		action.yml
package-lock.json		package-lock.json
package.json		package.json
rollup.config.ts		rollup.config.ts
tsconfig.json		tsconfig.json

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Inspect Visual Studio

Example usage

Inputs

version

architecture

platform-type

windows-sdk-version

spectre-mode

process-paths

windows-paths

cygwin-paths

msys2-paths

if-not-windows

debug

Outputs

vcvarsall-path

path

include

lib

libpath

vc-installdir

vs-installdir

vs-version

vctools-installdir

vctools-version

windows-sdk-dir

windows-sdk-version

windows-sdk-lib-version

ucrt-version

vcmd-arg-tgt-arch

vcmd-arg-host-arch

platform

all

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Languages

`version`

`architecture`

`platform-type`

`windows-sdk-version`

`spectre-mode`

`process-paths`

`windows-paths`

`cygwin-paths`

`msys2-paths`

`if-not-windows`

`debug`

`vcvarsall-path`

`path`

`include`

`lib`

`libpath`

`vc-installdir`

`vs-installdir`

`vs-version`

`vctools-installdir`

`vctools-version`

`windows-sdk-dir`

`windows-sdk-version`

`windows-sdk-lib-version`

`ucrt-version`

`vcmd-arg-tgt-arch`

`vcmd-arg-host-arch`

`platform`

`all`