Github workflow job not triggered while dependent on other job - github-actions

I'm trying to achieve a flow with a job dependency tree based on needs and if
This is the workflow file, and my problem is that the job4 is not being triggered even when the job3 is being executed successfully.
I can't find any documentation explaining what is happening, but it seems that the needs tree that is being built behind the scenes is not matching the job4, because the needs on the job3 is not completed (is forced by the if)
I have a workaround to solve this flow using job outputs, but I was wondering why the simple example is not working. Can anyone explain me why?
Thanks
name: Test Workflow
on:
push:
jobs:
job1:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- run: echo Job1
job2:
if: cancelled()
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- run: echo Job2
job3:
if: always()
needs: [job1, job2]
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- run: echo Job3
job4:
needs: job3
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- run: echo Job4

All dependent jobs must succeed. So jon your job 4 depdends on the job 3 it must that job 3 and all it's need must be succeded.
Please check this GitHub issue - Job-level "if" condition not evaluated correctly if job in "needs" property is skipped.
I assume that in your case even if you forced job 3 to run the result is not success but something different. Thus job 4 is not run.
You probably need sth like this on job 4.
if: |
always() &&
(needs.job3.result == 'success' || needs.job3.result == 'skipped')

Related

Matrix strategy over entire workflow in github actions

With the matrix strategy and two jobs like those below, the first job runs a "matrix" of possible configurations in parallel, and when all of them succeed, it moves onto the second job.
jobs:
job1:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
strategy:
matrix:
version: [10, 12, 14]
steps:
# etc
job2:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
needs: job1
strategy:
matrix:
version: [10, 12, 14]
steps:
# etc
What would be nice is to essentially have a matrix over the whole workflow, where for each matrix value, the entire workflow of jobs is run unimpeded, in parallel. That means for a particular configuration job2 can proceed right after job1 completes for that configuration, regardless of whether job1 for another configuration is still in process or has failed.
In the following diagram, the first case is what will currently happen, and the second is the desired case:
I feel like this could be "emulated" by launching the workflow several times with a different context. But how could this be done, for example from a trigger? Somehow specify on: push that 3 versions of the workflow must run simultaneously?
After some digging, I think "Reusable workflows" is the currently supported method.
The solution is to have two workflow files. One that has all the jobs, and another small workflow that has the matrix and calls the other workflow.
name: Common Workflow
on:
workflow_call:
inputs:
version: # the variable you can use in place of a matrix
required: true
type: number
jobs:
job1:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- run: echo 'job1 version ${{ inputs.version }}'
job2:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
needs: job1
steps:
- run: echo 'job2 version ${{ inputs.version }}'
name: Master Workflow
on:
push:
jobs:
version-matrix:
strategy:
# super important if you want to see all results, even if one fails
# fail-fast is true by default
fail-fast: false
matrix:
version: [10, 12, 14]
uses: ./.github/workflows/common-workflow.yml # calls the one above ^
with:
version: ${{ matrix.version }}
secrets: inherit
Here's a real example of it running in the UI:
One thing you will run into once you run this though, is the UI lists the subjobs in alphabetical order, and not the order they are listed in the workflow. So you lose the sense of the dependencies between the jobs. This is true in February 2023, so maybe Github will improve the UI down the road. Until then, we got around this by naming our jobs like 1. First Job, 2. Second Job so alphabetical is equivalent to the order they run in. It's hacky but it works.
Another thing to note, especially for deployments is the fail-fast attribute. This should be set to false to make sure every workflow in the matrix gets to run to completion, even if one of them fails.

How to throw error and stop action on condition in GH action [duplicate]

I'm developing a Github actions workflow. This workflow runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows.
As part of the workflow, I have to check whether 2 environment variables are equal. If they don't - fail the job.
As described here, Github Actions support if: condition:
steps:
- run: # How can I make a cross-platform failure here?
if: ${{ envA }} != ${{ envB }}
How can I make the job fail if the above condition is true?
In the beginning, I thought of a script, but there must be a more elegant way to fail a job.
I'd do run: exit 1. That will simply exit with an exit code of 1, on all three platforms.
Proof that it's cross-platform: https://github.com/rmunn/Testing/runs/220188838 which runs the following workflow:
name: Test exiting on failure
on: [push]
jobs:
build:
strategy:
matrix:
os: [ubuntu-latest, windows-latest, macOS-latest]
runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout#v1
- name: Try to fail
run: exit 1
- name: Print message if we don't fail
run: echo Should not get here
(An earlier version of this answer recommended "/bin/false", but that would only work on Linux and macOS).
In 2021, there is perhaps a more graceful way to do this:
- name: A/B Check
if: ${{ envA }} != ${{ envB }}
uses: actions/github-script#v3
with:
script: |
core.setFailed('envA and envB are not equivalent!')
Here, we use the github-script action to provide a one liner script that will fail the job. The "A/B Check" step will only run if the condition in the if line is true, so the script will only run in that case, which is what we want.
The nice thing about this approach is that you will get nicely formatted output in the Actions UI in your repo, showing that the "A/B Check" step caused the failure, and why (i.e. "envA and envB are not equivalent").
Note that if you have additional steps in the job after this, and you do NOT want them to run if the A/B check fails, you'll want to use if: success() on them to prevent them from running in that case.
The Github workflow commands docs gives a hint on this.
Toolkit function
Equivalent workflow command
core.setFailed
Used as a shortcut for ::error and exit 1
Given that, you can do the following without using any external workflows.
steps:
- name: A/B Check
if: ${{ envA }} != ${{ envB }}
run: |
echo "::error file={name},line={line},endLine={endLine},title={title}::{message}"
exit 1

Github actions: Run step / job in a workflow if changes happen in specific folder

Is there any way for us to control what jobs/steps to run in a workflow based on the changes in a specific folder
Eg:
I have said, following folders in my git repo : a, b, c
On every PR merge to my branch I will trigger a workflow. The workflow will execute jobs say,
A -> B -> C. I want to run job A only if changes are present for folder "a/**", B for "b/**" and so on.
So, If in the PR changes only happen in "a/**"and "b/**" workflow will skip job execution for C, making the workflow run to be A->B
You could use the paths-filter custom action with if conditions at the jobs or step levels, using a setup job as preliminary to check if your specific path has been updated, saving the result as an output.
Here is an example
name: Paths Filter Example
on: [push, workflow_dispatch]
jobs:
paths-filter:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
outputs:
output1: ${{ steps.filter.outputs.workflows }}
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout#v2
- uses: dorny/paths-filter#v2
id: filter
with:
filters: |
workflows:
- '.github/workflows/**'
# run only if 'workflows' files were changed
- name: workflow tests
if: steps.filter.outputs.workflows == 'true'
run: echo "Workflow file"
# run only if not 'workflows' files were changed
- name: not workflow tests
if: steps.filter.outputs.workflows != 'true'
run: echo "NOT workflow file"
next-job:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
# Wait from the paths-filter to be completed before starting next-job
needs: paths-filter
if: needs.paths-filter.outputs.output1 == 'true'
steps:
...
That way, you could have something like this in your jobs: A --> B or A --> C depending on the path that has been updated.
Yes: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/learn-github-actions/events-that-trigger-workflows#registry_package
This is the syntax:
on:
push:
paths:
- 'a/**'
- 'b/**'

Github Actions Workflow that runs when branch is main AND a matching tag is present [duplicate]

I want to trigger a Github workflow only if a code is pushed to a specific branch and if a tag exists, but my config (github workflow) does not work as expected:
name: Deployment
on:
push:
branches:
- feature/BRANCH-NAME
tags:
- *
jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout#v1
- uses: actions/setup-node#v1
with:
node-version: '10.x'
- name: Install dependencies
run: |
npm install
- name: Lint & build
run: |
npm run build
The workflow is triggered even if a tag does not exist.
How could I fix this?
EDIT: This workaround seemed to have solved my problem at the time of writing but I cannot guarantee that it still works as expected.
Since I couldn't find a way to implement an AND condition (i.e. tagged AND on master), I used the following workaround:
name: Worflow demo
on:
push:
tags:
- v*
jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout#v1
- name: Exit if not on master branch
if: endsWith(github.ref, 'master') == false
run: exit -1
- name: Next job ...
This will trigger if there is a tagged (e.g. tag v1.0.0) commit pushed:
on:
push:
tags:
- v*
The first step ('Exit if not on master branch') then checks if the current branch doesn't end with master and exits the workflow (the subsequent tests will not start):
- name: Exit if not on master branch
if: endsWith(github.ref, 'master') == false
run: exit -1
Hope this helps someone else as well.
can use release event and github.event.release.target_commitish to make only tags on 'my_branch' to trigger the build
name: workflow demo
on:
release:
types:
- published
jobs:
my_job:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: build only on my_branch tag
if: ${{ github.event_name == 'release' && github.event.release.target_commitish == 'my_branch'}}
run: "something"
To fix the multiple unintended runs I removed the "branches:" scalar and just include and !exclude tags that I want my workflow to run on.
Following runs on tagged releases, not on release candidates:
name: 'tagged-release'
on:
push:
tags:
- 'v[0-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+'
- '!*-rc[0-9]+'
The accepted answer didn't seem to work for me, as pointed out by dilithiummatrix in the comments.
So I tried outputting the available values of the github object, which you can do by adding this in your workflow file to see what is available:
- name: Dump job github var
env:
GITHUB_VAR: ${{ toJson(github) }}
run: echo "$GITHUB_VAR"
From this I noticed that as Billy Clark also pointed out, that github.event.base_ref contains refs/heads/production. So this worked for me:
# Only release from prod branch
- name: Exit if not on production branch
if: endsWith(github.event.base_ref, 'production') == false
run: exit -1
You can so by writing the following YAML code.
Keep in mind that you have to put the branches-ignore so that the workflow is not activated when you create branches. The part where you check whether the tag is pushed to a specific branch is covered in the second part of the answer.
name: Deployment
on:
push:
tags:
- *
branches-ignore:
- '*'
You can check for the name of the branch with the following code; specifically for every step of the job you are trying to accomplish.
- name: job
env:
BRANCH_NAME: ${{ github.head_ref || github.ref_name }}
if: contains(env.BRANCH_NAME, <branch-name>)
then follow up with some more code you want the workflow to do.

Allow a Job to run if it passes a script

I would like to allow a job to run only if its name can be found in some file.
jobs:
job1:
if : run some script that returns true if "${{ github.job }}" is in file.txt
steps:
...
However I'm quite sure i cant run a script outside of run, which I believe can't appear before the steps section, right?
If the option above simply isn't possible, perhaps there is a way to run this script on the first step and have the next steps not run unless the said critical step passed?
Thanks!
You could for example use 2 jobs in your action, where the second job would only be executed if the first one succeed return true using an if condition and outputs.
The workflow would look like something as below:
jobs:
job1:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
outputs:
output1: ${{ steps.script.outputs.bool }}
steps:
- name: Run the python script
id: script
run: |
value=$((your command running the script here) 2> &1) # should return true
echo "::set-output name=bool::$value" # set the value as output
job2:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
# Wait from the job1 to be completed before starting job2
needs: job1
if ${{ ${{needs.job1.outputs.output1}} == true }} # won't execute if output of job 1 isn't true
steps:
...
If you want to know more about:
if condition + context and expression
outputs
Note: The contains expression in the if condition could also be used eventually depending on your context (what the script does). It could even be the easiest solution :)