Cannot config yml file in github actions for parallellization

Question

I want to activate 4 virtual machines for cypress cloud parallelization but with the mention that for each virtual machine I want to have a folder suite_${{virtual machine number}} so as not to confuse the tests between them.

I can't configure the yml file to find the tests in the path cypress/e2e/Tests/suite_${{virtual machine number}}/*.spec.ts

I have this code:

name: UP Automation regression

on:
  push:
    branches: [ paralellization ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ paralellization ]

jobs:
  
  run-automation-regression-tests:
    runs-on: windows-latest
    strategy:
      fail-fast: false
      matrix:
        containers: [1, 2, 3, 4]
    steps:
      - run: git config --global url."https://ghp_****@github.com/".insteadOf https://github.com/
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          persist-credentials: false
      - name: Set test spec path
        run: echo "TEST_SPEC_PATH=cypress/e2e/Tests/suite_${{ matrix.containers }}" >> $GITHUB_ENV
      - name: Cypress run
        uses: cypress-io/github-action@v6
        with:
          browser: electron
          record: true
          parallel: true
          spec: ${{ env.TEST_SPEC_PATH }}
        env:
          # For recording and parallelization to work you must set your CYPRESS_RECORD_KEY
          # in GitHub repo → Settings → Secrets → Actions
          CYPRESS_RECORD_KEY: ${{ secrets.CYPRESS_RECORD_KEY }}
          # Creating a token https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/keeping-your-account-and-data-secure/creating-a-personal-access-token
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Answer 1

Since you are running on a windows machine (windows-latest), this part will not actually work, even though the documentation suggests so:

run: echo "TEST_SPEC_PATH=cypress/e2e/Tests/suite_${{ matrix.containers }}" >> $GITHUB_ENV

See this answer for more details, but in short, you need to change this to the following:

run: echo "TEST_SPEC_PATH=cypress/e2e/Tests/suite_${{ matrix.containers }}" >> $env:GITHUB_ENV

So really to just change $GITHUB_ENV to $env:GITHUB_ENV. The first one would work for bash, but since these are executed on powershell instead due to the windows runner, the powershell syntax is required.

There's a brief example about the different syntaxes found here.