Help - Action to pull local docker image

[ReaperMantis]

Hello,
I hope this is an easy one, I couldn't find an answer for it.

I've got an action.yml that I would like to use a local docker image that's already built on my system: aarch64-cross-compile-toolkit.

$ docker images
REPOSITORY                      TAG               IMAGE ID       CREATED        SIZE
aarch64-cross-compile-toolkit   latest            628da6999786   12 hours ago   3.21GB
<none>                          <none>            62758cdd379e   20 hours ago   3.17GB
catthehacker/ubuntu             act-latest        9692d5061fe5   3 days ago     1.47GB
moby/buildkit                   buildx-stable-1   44f5d48d5c6c   2 months ago   219MB
tonistiigi/binfmt               latest            69b92b14f1eb   6 months ago   80.9MB

My action.yml is set up as follows:

name: "Cross-Compile Utility"
description: "Utility container for cross-compiling aarch64 software"
author: ""

inputs:
  command:
    description: "Command to run inside the cross-compilation container (e.g. makepkg -si, make, meson setup)"
    required: true
    default: "bash"

runs:
  using: "docker"
  image: "aarch64-cross-compile-toolkit:latest"
  args:
    - ${{ inputs.command }}

If the action uses image: "aarch64-cross-compile-toolkit:latest", then act will attempt to build a new image from a docker file in the same folder as the action. This is not what I want to do since the image is already built. act also names the image in its own way (act-github-actions-cross-compile-dockeraction:latest). If I put the docker file in the same directory, it will not build the image anyway. Here is an excerpt from the logs:

[Build Kernel and Headers/build]   🐳  docker build -t act-github-actions-cross-compile-dockeraction:latest /home/ReaperMantis/Workspace/Orange-Pi-Media-Server/.github/actions/cross-compile
[Build Kernel and Headers/build] [DEBUG] Building image from '/home/ReaperMantis/Workspace/Orange-Pi-Media-Server/.github/actions/cross-compile'
[Build Kernel and Headers/build] [DEBUG] Creating image from context dir '/home/ReaperMantis/Workspace/Orange-Pi-Media-Server/.github/actions/cross-compile' with tag 'act-github-actions-cross-compile-dockeraction:latest' and platform ''
[Build Kernel and Headers/build]   🐳  docker pull image=act-github-actions-cross-compile-dockeraction:latest platform= username= forcePull=false
[Build Kernel and Headers/build] [DEBUG]   🐳  docker pull act-github-actions-cross-compile-dockeraction:latest
[Build Kernel and Headers/build] [DEBUG] Image exists? false
[Build Kernel and Headers/build] [DEBUG] pulling image 'docker.io/library/act-github-actions-cross-compile-dockeraction:latest' ()
[Build Kernel and Headers/build]   ❌  Failure - Main Build Linux Kernel [670.104336ms]
[Build Kernel and Headers/build] Error response from daemon: pull access denied for act-github-actions-cross-compile-dockeraction, repository does not exist or may require 'docker login': denied: requested access to the resource is denied

If the action uses image: "docker://aarch64-cross-compile-toolkit:latest", act will attempt to get the image from docker.io.

[Build Kernel and Headers/build]   🐳  docker pull image=aarch64-cross-compile-toolkit:latest platform= username= forcePull=true
[Build Kernel and Headers/build] [DEBUG]   🐳  docker pull aarch64-cross-compile-toolkit:latest
[Build Kernel and Headers/build] [DEBUG] pulling image 'docker.io/library/aarch64-cross-compile-toolkit:latest' ()
[Build Kernel and Headers/build]   ❌  Failure - Main Build Linux Kernel [509.471052ms]
[Build Kernel and Headers/build] Error response from daemon: pull access denied for aarch64-cross-compile-toolkit, repository does not exist or may require 'docker login': denied: requested access to the resource is denied

Is there a way to use the local image? Is there an alternative way to do the same thing?

As a workaround, I've run the command manually to create the image the way act is looking for:

$ docker build -t act-github-actions-cross-compile-dockeraction:latest /home/ReaperMantis/Workspace/Orange-Pi-Media-Server/.github/actions/cross-compile`

[wellkilo]

Use the prebuilt-image form and tell act not to force a pull:

runs:
  using: docker
  image: docker://aarch64-cross-compile-toolkit:latest
  args:
    - ${{ inputs.command }}

act --pull=false

The two image syntaxes mean different things:

• image: Dockerfile (or another path without docker://) is a Docker action build context. act intentionally creates its own act-...-dockeraction:latest tag and builds it.
• image: docker://name:tag is a prebuilt image. act strips docker:// and uses that image name.

The remaining issue in your log is that --pull defaults to true, so even when the exact image exists locally, act tries Docker Hub first. --pull=false makes the pull executor check the local image/platform and return without pulling when it is present. Current source: prebuilt-vs-build branch, local-image check when force-pull is false, and the flag default.

Before running, verify the tag and architecture:

docker image inspect aarch64-cross-compile-toolkit:latest \
  --format '{{.Id}} {{.Os}}/{{.Architecture}}'
act --pull=false --container-architecture linux/arm64

Use the architecture flag only if the workflow is supposed to run as ARM64 and your Docker installation can execute it. If the local image's architecture does not match act's requested platform, act may remove/reject it and the fix is to rebuild/tag the correct platform, not to bypass the check.

If docker image inspect and act --pull=false resolve it, please mark this as the accepted answer.