compare.md

title	Compare
description	Compare two plan, state or Form operands and retain one Comparison Form in GitHub Actions.

Use rootform-dev/action/compare@v1 to review architectural differences between two sets of evidence. It installs Rootform and prepares required content; setup, init and separate analyze steps are optional.

- uses: rootform-dev/action/compare@v1
  id: comparison
  with:
    version: 0.3.0
    before: ${{ runner.temp }}/before/plan.json
    before-plan-file: ${{ runner.temp }}/before/plan.tfplan
    after: ${{ runner.temp }}/after/plan.json
    after-plan-file: ${{ runner.temp }}/after/plan.tfplan

Both before and after are required. Each accepts plan JSON, state JSON or a single-input Form; a Comparison Form cannot be an operand. Each supplied saved plan must verify against its own JSON export. Omit the saved-plan input on a state or Form side. before-stage and after-stage choose available stages; Rootform supplies their defaults.

form is the Comparison Form, which embeds both architectures. There are no separate before/after Form outputs. report and html present that same Form; all three outputs are same-job paths. Reopen it with analyze or evaluate its Policies with check. Summary and artifact upload default to on; the primitive never comments on a PR.

See installation, version and project content and permissions, artifact retention and publication.

Inputs

Type describes accepted values. GitHub passes all inputs as strings. bool accepts true or false. int accepts a whole number. An empty default leaves the input unset.

Input	Type	Default	Description
version	string	""	Exact published version; omit to reuse a verified version in this job
github-token	string	${{ github.token }}	GitHub token for release API requests
before	string	""	Before plan JSON, state JSON or single-input Form
after	string	""	After plan JSON, state JSON or single-input Form
before-plan-file	string	""	Matching saved plan for before; pairing must verify
after-plan-file	string	""	Matching saved plan for after; pairing must verify
before-stage	string	""	Before stage: planned, refreshed or recorded
after-stage	string	""	After stage: planned, refreshed or recorded
project	string	""	Project directory for raw evidence or Policy selection; defaults to workspace
locked	bool	false	Require and preserve existing rootform.lock
offline	bool	false	Prepare selected external content without network access
cache	bool	true	Cache verified external sources selected by rootform.lock
summary	bool	true	Append CLI Markdown to GitHub Job Summary
upload-artifact	bool	true	Upload Form and derived reports as one artifact; never raw inputs
artifact-name	string	""	Artifact name; defaults to a unique name per invocation, including matrix jobs
retention-days	int	7	Artifact retention: 1–90 days, capped by repository limit

Outputs

Output	Description
version	Verified Rootform CLI version
form	Path to the generated Comparison Form
report	Path to the complete CLI Markdown report
html	Path to the self-contained HTML Explorer
artifact-id	Uploaded artifact ID for cross-job download
artifact-url	Uploaded artifact URL

Exact fields and defaults: Action metadata.