The only way to actually run the workflow is to push the code and trigger the workflow somehow. And you can't push code without committing it since this is git.

You could write the workflow correctly the first time. Good luck. It's not one language, you're writing PowerShell scripts inside a bunch of YAML files that reference each other with relative paths and need to call installers that were never written for unattended installs. The only way I can make it work is through trial and error.

GHA really feels like it's trying to cobble up a CI/CD pipeline from a million different pieces that were designed for entirely different purposes. It works, if you spend enough weeks on it, but it will never be pleasant to configure. I can understand why they didn't even try to make it reproducible on the users' workstations, it can break if basically any part of your system's configuration, filesystem, or environment deviates from the runners.

That's obviously not entirely GitHub's fault and the service is very practical once it's set up. My advice is to depend on GHA for their useful features (caching, Secrets, parallel jobs) and do everything else in your own scripts or in Docker.