Summary

The CI workflow generated by cargo-dist runs apt-get install without the -y flag, which can cause the command to hang waiting for user confirmation in non-interactive environments.

Details

In cargo-dist/src/backend/ci/github.rs, the system_deps_install_script function generates package install commands for CI runners. While other package managers correctly include their non-interactive flags:

• choco: --yes
• dnf: --assumeyes

apt-get install does not include -y.

Why this hasn't been an issue on GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions standard runners pre-configure the APT::Get::Assume-Yes apt option, which suppresses confirmation prompts globally. This means apt-get install runs non-interactively even without -y.

When this becomes a problem

Custom containers (container: in workflow) or self-hosted runners may not have APT::Get::Assume-Yes configured. In those environments, apt-get install will prompt for confirmation and hang indefinitely.

Reproduction

Configure a cargo-dist project with system dependencies that require apt (e.g. a musl target needing musl-tools), and run cargo dist plan. The generated CI config will contain:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install musl-tools

Expected:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y musl-tools

Proposed fix

Add -y to the apt-get install command in the CI generation code, consistent with how other package managers handle non-interactive mode.