Having to push a commit to test the Github equivalent (Actions) was a huge pain. I think I ended up with 80+ commits.

I wish the existing solutions on the Github side worked.

Mildly ironic that you're hosting this on Github.

I did experience a bad outcome using act[0] for a super weird matrix-y workflow, but I'd say for the most part it behaved sanely; did you report your complaints to their issue tracker?

0 = https://github.com/nektos/act