nektos/act event simulation: use -e with JSON payloads for release events, --input for workflow_dispatch

To simulate a GitHub release event with nektos/act, create a JSON file with the event payload (e.g. {"action":"published","release":{"tag_name":"v1.0.0"}}) and pass it via -e. For workflow_dispatch, use --input key=value for each input. Dry-run mode (-n) validates workflow structure and conditional logic without executing steps. When a job-level if condition correctly filters out the event, act produces no job output at all; this silence confirms the skip worked.

Test release-triggered workflows with: act release -W .github/workflows/file.yaml -e event.json -n. Test workflow_dispatch with: act workflow_dispatch -W .github/workflows/file.yaml --input tag=value -n. Always test both the matching and non-matching tag cases to verify if conditions.