Cache conflicts when running on different architectures

[m-kuhn]

When running the action in a matrix with x64 and arm64 runners, the cached dependencies are conflicting.

One of the two workflows succeeds, the other one fails with something like this:

Invoke-ArtifactSigning: D:\a\_temp\ace73d1e-2ff7-4e95-b221-c9815111b8d6.ps1:215
Line |
 215 |  Invoke-ArtifactSigning @params
     |  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     | The term 'Invoke-ArtifactSigning' is not recognized as a name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or executable
     | program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try
     | again.

It would be great if the cache name could be specified in the action configuration or a suffix appended, maybe even architecture specific by default.

For now, we'll deactivate dependency caching as a workaround.

Reproduction (adapted from main readme, not tested exactly like this):

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

permissions:
  id-token: write
  contents: read

jobs:
  build-and-sign:
    strategy:
      matrix:
        include:
          - os: windows-latest
          - os: windows-11-arm
          - 
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}

    name: Build app and sign files with Artifact Signing
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v5

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: dotnet restore App

      - name: Build
        run: dotnet build --configuration Release --no-restore WpfApp

      - name: Azure login
        uses: azure/login@v3
        with:
          client-id: ${{ secrets.AZURE_CLIENT_ID }}
          tenant-id: ${{ secrets.AZURE_TENANT_ID }}
          subscription-id: ${{ secrets.AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID }}

      - name: Sign files with Artifact Signing
        uses: azure/artifact-signing-action@v2
        with:
          endpoint: https://eus.codesigning.azure.net/
          signing-account-name: vscx-codesigning
          certificate-profile-name: vscx-certificate-profile
          files-folder: ${{ github.workspace }}\App\App\bin\Release\net8.0-windows
          files-folder-filter: exe,dll
          file-digest: SHA256
          timestamp-rfc3161: http://timestamp.acs.microsoft.com
          timestamp-digest: SHA256

[Jaxelr]

hey @m-kuhn just to clarify, this action is not supported on win arm64, the underlying signing tools still don't have support for it. That being said, I understand what you are suggesting. Let me review this, because I thought I had an action sample that ran on multiple windows instances and it didn't ran into this issue.

By any chance do you have a reproducible action you could share?

[m-kuhn]

@Jaxelr Here are links to two recent workflow runs:

• With caching (the slower job fails to sign): https://github.com/opengisch/QField/actions/runs/26944301567
• Without caching (both architectures succeed): https://github.com/opengisch/QField/actions/runs/26954229287

In my experience, the arm64 signing works well. It's possible that on arm64 the x64 tools are executed in emulation. But if it was using the x64 tools in both workflows, I wonder why disabling the cache would have fixed something.

[Jaxelr]

Interesting, do you see this also on the latest version 2? Looks like the version with caching is using the action v1.1.0. In any case, I'll take a deeper look at this, I feel we've had multiple reports of caching inconsistencies.

[m-kuhn]

Sure, it's running here: https://github.com/opengisch/QField/actions/runs/27020213140?pr=7518

[tamird]

Another public data point for the cache-disabled ARM path:

https://github.com/openai/codex/actions/runs/27472956901/job/81209093644

This job ran azure/trusted-signing-action v0.5.11 on the windows-11-arm64 image with cache-dependencies: false. It successfully signed five ARM64 PE executables using the x64 SignTool and x64 Trusted Signing client under Windows emulation.

The job used Windows SDK BuildTools 10.0.26100.4188 and Trusted Signing Client 1.0.95. No files were assigned to Sign CLI, so this confirms the emulated SignTool path rather than native Sign CLI support.