Syntax for jobs in GH actions workflow file

See Workflow syntax for Github Actions in Github docs.

A workflow run is made up of one or more jobs. Jobs run in parallel by default.

To run jobs sequentially, you can define dependencies on other jobs using the jobs.<job_id>.needs keyword.

Each job runs in an environment specified by runs-on.

Job IDs

Each job must have a unique ID as below. This must start with a letter or _ and contain only alphanumeric characters, -, or _.

jobs:
  my_first_job:
    name: My first job

  my_second_job:
    name: My second job

Using runs-on.

jobs:
  my_first_job:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: My first job

  my_second_job:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: My second job

Needs

By default jobs run in parallel.

Here we setup a sequence of jobs that only run if the previous one passed.

Job Needs docs.

Identifies any jobs that must complete successfully before this job will run. It can be a string or array of strings. If a job fails, all jobs that need it are skipped unless the jobs use a conditional statement that causes the job to continue.

  • main.yml 
      jobs:
    job1:

    job2:
      needs: job1

    job3:
      needs: [job1, job2]

See job output in the docs for how to persist or upload and download artifications. If you don’t do this, then a build directory from one job can’t be used by the other job.

Using job output in a dependent job:

  • main.yml 
      jobs:
    job1:
      runs-on: ubuntu-latest

      # Map a step output to a job output
      outputs:
        output1: ${{ steps.step1.outputs.test }}
        output2: ${{ steps.step2.outputs.test }}

      steps:
      - id: step1
        run: echo "::set-output name=test::hello"
      - id: step2
        run: echo "::set-output name=test::world"

    job2:
      runs-on: ubuntu-latest

      needs: job1

      steps:
      - run: echo ${{needs.job1.outputs.output1}} ${{needs.job1.outputs.output2}}

If statement

This step only runs when the event type is a pull_request and the event action is unassigned.

  • main.yml ```yaml steps:
    • name: My first step if: ${{ github.event_name == ‘pull_request’ && github.event.action == ‘unassigned’ }} run: echo This event is a pull request that had an assignee removed. ```
  • main.yml ```yaml steps:
    • name: Print a greeting env: MY_VAR: Hi there! My name is FIRST_NAME: Mona MIDDLE_NAME: The LAST_NAME: Octocat run: | echo $MY_VAR $FIRST_NAME $MIDDLE_NAME $LAST_NAME. ```

This can be useful if you want just one workflow file and one job but want to skip a deploy steps at the end.

Read more

Env

env:
  SERVER: production

Defaults

defaults:
  foo: bar

defaults:
  run:
    shell: bash
    working-directory: scripts