distribute action breaks all later steps with "Argument list too long" (E2BIG) — FLY_DISTRIBUTE_RESULTS exported to $GITHUB_ENV exceeds 128 KB

Start by locating the distribute action implementation and searching for the FLY_DISTRIBUTE_RESULTS and GITHUB_ENV references. Verify that the results step output and job-summary table remain available, while a large result no longer prevents later and post-cleanup steps from starting.

Action: jfrog/fly-action/distribute@v1 (also affects @v1.7.1), type: docker
Runner: ubuntu-24.04, runner 2.335.1

Summary

The distribute action writes its results blob into $GITHUB_ENV as FLY_DISTRIBUTE_RESULTS. Because that value includes a files array with per-file download_count, it grows over time. Once it exceeds the Linux single-env-var limit (MAX_ARG_STRLEN = 131072 bytes), the kernel rejects execve for any process that inherits the environment. Every step and post-cleanup step after distribute then fails to start bash/node with:

An error occurred trying to start process '/usr/bin/bash' with working directory '...'. Argument list too long

The same error also hits Post Run actions/checkout and Post <your-action> (node) cleanup steps, so the whole job fails even though the distribute itself succeeded.

Evidence

Measured in CI immediately after the distribute step:

• FLY_DISTRIBUTE_RESULTS = 133,965 bytes
• Total of all other env vars ≈ 10 KB
• FLY_ACCESS_TOKEN = 754 bytes

So it is specifically this one oversized variable, not overall environment size. The single-string limit (MAX_ARG_STRLEN, 128 KB) is exceeded by FLY_DISTRIBUTE_RESULTS alone. The workflow passed for months and only began failing once the accumulated blob crossed ~128 KB.

Impact

Any job that runs a step (or relies on action post-steps) after distribute fails to spawn any process — bash, node, etc. The distribute succeeds, but the deploy/notify steps and post-cleanup all break.

Expected

results is already exposed as a step output and a job-summary table, which is the right place for it. It should not also be written to $GITHUB_ENV. Please remove the FLY_DISTRIBUTE_RESULTS GITHUB_ENV export, or cap its size / drop the files array from the env copy.

Workaround (for other users hitting this)

Add a step immediately after distribute that blanks the variable. A step-level env: override lets that step's own shell start despite the oversized inherited value, and writing an empty value to $GITHUB_ENV clears it for all subsequent steps and the post-cleanup steps:

- name: Clear oversized FLY_DISTRIBUTE_RESULTS
  env:
    FLY_DISTRIBUTE_RESULTS: ""
  run: echo "FLY_DISTRIBUTE_RESULTS=" >> "$GITHUB_ENV"