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Tomasz Bartkowiak
Tomasz Bartkowiak

Reputation: 15018

GitHub Actions: sharing/referencing jobs between workflows

As discussed here, in GitHub Actions there is a nice way of referencing jobs in other jobs using need keyword, e.g.

name: Share data between jobs
on: [push]

jobs:
  job_1:
    name: Add 3 and 7
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
        # Steps

  job_2:
    name: Multiply by 9
    needs: job_1
    # The rest of the job

The question that I could not find an answer to in the documentation is: Is there a way to reference/share jobs in other workflows? (i.e. separate yml file).

My project consists of few separate workflows and each of them needs to perform the same initial steps. I am trying to avoid copy-pasting the same steps across different workflows.

Upvotes: 12

Views: 8426

Answers (2)

Nicronaide
Nicronaide

Reputation: 81

It sounds like you'd like to reuse a single job among multiple workflows to keep your work DRY/SPOT (single point of truth) so you don't have to repeat yourself and introduce errors. This can be done by Reusing Workflows.

There is essentially a "caller" workflow, and that calls (runs) the "called" workflow with optional inputs and outputs.

The following .yml file 'uses' the relative path of the called workflow (but can reference other repos with versions etc. - see documentation).

name: Caller for a reusable workflow
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
jobs:
  example_job:
    uses: ./.github/workflows/reusable-workflow-example-called.yml
    with:
      BUILD_ENV: "Dev"
    secrets:
      TESTING: ${{ secrets.TESTING }}

And the above workflow calls the workflow below, and optionally passes in variables and secrets.

name: Called reusable workflow

on:
  workflow_call:
    inputs:
      BUILD_ENV:
        required: true
        type: string
    secrets:
      TESTING:
        required: true

jobs:
  called-workflow:
    name: Blippedy
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - id: do-a-thing
        run: |
          echo "${BUILD_ENV} is ${TESTING}!"
          echo $BUILD_ENV
          echo "${{ inputs.BUILD_ENV }} ${{ secrets.TESTING }}"

I use this to run a the same job (Postman tests via newman) across multiple workflows configured for different environments.

Alternatively, if you're looking for using a single step across jobs/workflows, check out Composite Actions.

Upvotes: 6

DannyB
DannyB

Reputation: 14836

At this time, I do not think specifying dependencies between workflows is possible. It is discussed in this GitHub community forum:

How do I specify job dependency running in another workflow?

What you can do is to use the same workflow file and then use conditions to trigger or not a specific job.

If you want to run a job only when there is a push to master branch you can do it like this:

   deploy:
       if: github.event_name == 'push' && github.ref == 'refs/heads/master'

Upvotes: 8

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