Practicalli on a minimal budget

I am writing an article about running Practicalli for (almost) zero cost, only the domain name renewal incurs a yearly fee.

Surprisingly, GitHub started showing a message about a billing problem. As I shouldn't be billed for anything I am aware of, further investigation was required. The issue was resolved really quickly by GitHub support.

Debianλ︎

I have replaced Oh my Zsh with Prezto configuration for Zsh. Prezto works really well and is what I am used to using.

I could not get the zsh-auto-suggestions module to work with OhMyZsh, so I didnt get fish shell style completions (which are really nice).

Practicalli dotfiles contains my personal configuration for Prezto. This config has been updated to use Starship.rs prompt theme. Previously Powerline10k was used but it is now unmaintained.

I prefer Starship prompt theme and it feels easier to config using the starship.toml configuration file (also part of Practicalli dotfiles).

GitHubλ︎

The billing issue I was seeing a message for has been resolved, thanks to GitHub support for resolving the issue so quickly.

I installed the GitHub CLI on rangerone (Lenovo Extreme laptop), via the Linux & BSD install script. The Debian package in Trixie is for version 2.46 and the current release is 2.75.

Using GitHub CLIλ︎

I enjoy using the GitHub CLI for managing issues and pull requests via the terminal. The Neovim Octo plugin provides a nice UX on top of the GitHub CLI,

The GitHub CLI can list the open issues for the current repository. The first time GitHub CLI is used it should be authenticated against your GitHub account.

❯ gh issue list
To get started with GitHub CLI, please run:  gh auth login
Alternatively, populate the GH_TOKEN environment variable with a GitHub API authentication token.

Authorise and upload a local SSH public key to your GitHub account.

❯ gh auth login
? Where do you use GitHub? GitHub.com
? What is your preferred protocol for Git operations on this host? SSH
? Upload your SSH public key to your GitHub account? /home/practicalli/.ssh/engineering.pub
? Title for your SSH key: GitHub CLI
? How would you like to authenticate GitHub CLI? Login with a web browser

! First copy your one-time code: ****-****
Press Enter to open https://github.com/login/device in your browser...
✓ Authentication complete.
- gh config set -h github.com git_protocol ssh
✓ Configured git protocol
✓ SSH key already existed on your GitHub account: /home/practicalli/.ssh/engineering.pub
✓ Logged in as practicalli-johnny

Billing issueλ︎

Last month I started seeing a message on GitHub about my payment method being expired.

Initial investigation showed that my practicalli-johnny account had been billed 0.01 USD. According to the invoice this fee was for use of GitHub actions, but the actual action that incurred the fee was not specified.

I checked my accounts and couldn't find any particular GitHub action that should incur a fee. All my accounts were well within free limits and I don't use services like AI that can quietly crank up costs.

As my old AmEx card was still my registered card (Salesforce company card), it had long expired so GitHub could not take the 0.01 USD fee.

An Internet search showed that this 0.01 USD fee had also happened to other peoples accounts.

Incorrectly billed for actions - GitHub ticket

My GitHub support tickets