Trigger Workflow and Wait

Github Action for trigger a workflow from another workflow. The action then waits for a response.

When would you use it?

When deploying an app you may need to deploy additional services, this Github Action helps with that.

Arguments

Argument Name	Required	Default	Description
owner	True	N/A	The owner of the repository where the workflow is contained.
repo	True	N/A	The repository where the workflow is contained.
github_token	True	N/A	The Github access token with access to the repository. Its recommended you put it under secrets.
workflow_file_name	True	N/A	The reference point. For example, you could use main.yml.
github_user	False	N/A	The name of the github user whose access token is being used to trigger the workflow.
ref	False	main	The reference of the workflow run. The reference can be a branch, tag, or a commit SHA.
waiting_interval	False	10	The number of seconds delay between checking for result of run.
inputs	False	{}	Inputs to pass to the workflow, must be a JSON string
propagate_failure	False	true	Fail current job if downstream job fails.
trigger_workflow	False	true	Trigger the specified workflow.
wait_workflow	False	true	Wait for workflow to finish.

Example

Simple

- uses: convictional/[email protected]
  with:
    owner: keithconvictional
    repo: myrepo
    github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN }}

All Options

- uses: convictional/[email protected]
  with:
    owner: keithconvictional
    repo: myrepo
    github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN }}
    github_user: github-user
    workflow_file_name: main.yml
    ref: release-branch
    wait_interval: 10
    inputs: '{}'
    propagate_failure: false
    trigger_workflow: true
    wait_workflow: true

Testing

You can test out the action locally by cloning the repository to your computer. You can run:

INPUT_WAITING_INTERVAL=10 \
  INPUT_PROPAGATE_FAILURE=false \
  INPUT_TRIGGER_WORKFLOW=true \
  INPUT_WORKFLOW_FILE_NAME="main.yml" \
  INPUT_GITHUB_USER="github-user" \
  INPUT_WAIT_WORKFLOW=true \
  INPUT_OWNER="keithconvictional" \
  INPUT_REPO="trigger-workflow-and-wait-example-repo1" \
  INPUT_GITHUB_TOKEN="<REDACTED>" \
  INPUT_INPUTS='{}' \
  bash entrypoint.sh

You will have to create a Github Personal access token. You can create a test workflow to be executed. In a repository, add a new main.yml to .github/workflows/. The workflow will be:

name: Main
on:
  workflow_dispatch
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@master
      - name: Pause for 25 seconds
        run: |
          sleep 25

You can see the example here. For testing a failure case, just add this line after the sleep:

...
- name: Pause for 25 seconds
  run: |
    sleep 25
    echo "For testing failure"
    exit 1

Potential Issues

Timing

The actions dispatch is an asynchronous job and it at times can take a few seconds to start. If you do not have a delay, it may be started after the action has checked if it was successful. ie. Start dispatch call --> No delay --> Check if successful --> Actually starts. If the workflow has run before, it will just complete immediately as a successful run. You can solve this by simply increasing the delay to a few seconds. By default it is 10 seconds. Creating a large delay between checks will help the traffic to the Github API.

Changes

If you do not want the latest build all of the time, please use a versioned copy of the Github Action. You specify the version after the @ sign.

- uses: convictional/[email protected]
  with:
    owner: keithconvictional
    repo: myrepo
    github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN }}