setting output variables on Windows using cmd.exe as the shell - github-actions

Question

How can i set output variables when using shell: cmd on Windows? My repo is hosted at Github (not Gitlab).
The following is based on this accepted answer
jobs:
job1:
runs-on: my-windows-machine
# Map a step output to a job output
outputs:
output1: ${{ steps.step1.outputs.test }}
output2: ${{ steps.step2.outputs.test }}
steps:
- id: step1
run: |
echo '::echo::on'
echo "::set-output name=test::hello"
shell: cmd
- id: step2
run: |
echo '::echo::on'
echo "::set-output name=test::world"
shell: cmd
job2:
runs-on: my-windows-machine
needs: job1
steps:
- run: echo ok: ${{needs.job1.outputs.output1}} ${{needs.job1.outputs.output2}}
shell: cmd
The echo stmt in job2 only shows ok: string if shell: cmd is used in the steps in job1.

Answer 1

As the OP Andrew concludes in the comments, output vars just is not supported with cmd.exe.
I went ahead and broke up the steps in my workflow to use shell: cmd for the things that need to be processed by cmd.exe and created a separate step (using the default shell) just to set the output vars.
As an alternative, you can see in "Github Actions, how to share a calculated value between job steps?" the $GITHUB_OUTPUT command, which can be used to define outputs for steps. The outputs can then be used in later steps and evaluated in with and env input sections.
You can see it used in "How can I use a GitHub action's output in a workflow?".
Note: the older ::set-output command has now (Oct. 2022) been deprecated.
name: 'Hello World'
runs:
using: "composite"
steps:
- id: random-number-generator
run: echo "name=random-id::$(echo $RANDOM)" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
shell: bash
...
jobs:
test-job:
runs-on: self-hosted
steps:
- name: Call Hello World
id: hello-world
uses: actions/hello-world-action#v1
- name: Comment
if: ${{ github.event_name == 'pull_request' }}
uses: actions/github-script#v3
with:
github-token: ${{secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN}}
script: |
github.issues.createComment({
issue_number: context.issue.number,
owner: context.repo.owner,
repo: context.repo.repo,
body: 'Output - ${{ steps.hello-world.outputs.random-number }}'
})