Workflow Dispatcher | GitHub Action

About

Lightweight composite steps Github Action for triggering a workflow in a different repository and waiting until its completion. Inspired by Trigger Workflow And Wait Action.

Why use this Action?

• Being a composite run steps Action, it is lightweight compared to the original Docker based Action.
• It adds checks to ensure that the correct workflow is identified and waited upon.
• It provides a link to the output of the remote workflow and shows details about the last commit in the branch/tag of the remote repo.

When should you use it?

When creating a workflow which deploys an entire distributed application in one go, spread across multiple repos. Since this Action waits for each workflow to complete, it will provide a holistic view of the deployment status in a single place.

Pre-requisites

• The target workflow should have a Repository Dispatch trigger.
• A personal access token (PAT) will be needed to trigger the remote workflow.
  • The scope of the default GitHub token is limited to the current repository only. Hence, it cannot be used.
  • The PAT should have access to run workflows in the target repository.
  • GitHub guide for creating a PAT is available here.
• Preferably, use this Action on a GitHub hosted runner. This is needed for avoiding issues arising from inconsistencies between timestamps returned from the runner and the GitHub API. This will not be a concern if the system clock on the self-hosted runner is accurate.

Inputs

Name	Required	Default	Description
owner	True	null	The owner of the target repository where the workflow is to be triggered.
repo	True	null	The target repository where the workflow is to be triggered.
token	True	null	The Github access token with access to the target repository. Its recommended you put it under secrets.
event_type	True	null	The event type that is configured in the repository dispatch trigger in the target workflow.
wait_time	False	10	The number of seconds delay between checking for the result of the target workflow.
max_time	False	600	Maximum amount of time to wait for workflow to complete (seconds).
client_payload	False	"{}"	Payload for the repository dispatch event. Usually used for passing a Git Ref to the target workflow.

Outputs

Name	Description
workflow-id	ID of the triggered workflow.
conclusion	Result of the triggered workflow.

Example Usage

    - name: Deploy Your Service
      uses: adityakar/[email protected]
      with:
        owner: your-github-org
        repo: your-repo
        token: ${{ secrets.PAT }}
        event_type: dev-deploy
        client_payload: '{"git-ref": "${{ github.event.inputs.git-ref }}"}'
        wait_time: 5
        max_time: 180