Failing to start MySQL inside GitHub Actions

I recently started running into this error on GitHub Actions out of the blue:

Failed to initialize, mysql service is unhealthy

It turns out, the MySQL docker image had been recently updated to no longer support setting the MYSQL_USER environment variable to root, since there is already a root user created by default.

To get around this issue, all you have to do is choose a different name for your MYSQL_USER:

 1services:
 2  mysql:
 3    image: mysql:8
 4    env:
 5      MYSQL_USER: laravel_user
 6      MYSQL_PASSWORD: laravel_pass
 7      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: root
 8      MYSQL_DATABASE: laravel_db
 9    ports:
10      - 3306:3306
11    options: --health-cmd="mysqladmin ping" --health-interval=10s --health-timeout=5s --health-retries=3

For reference, this is how I had it setup prior to the change:

 1services:
 2  mysql:
 3    image: mysql:8
 4    env:
 5      MYSQL_USER: root
 6      MYSQL_PASSWORD: root
 7      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: root
 8      MYSQL_DATABASE: laravel_db
 9    ports:
10      - 3306:3306
11    options: --health-cmd="mysqladmin ping" --health-interval=10s --health-timeout=5s --health-retries=3

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