How to skip workflow steps and still run the subsequent steps cleanly

[ImreC]

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So I am running a composed workflow which I have simplified here:

jobs:
  filter:
    outputs:
      should-run-workflow-2: ${{some-expression-that-evaluates-to-true-or-false}}
  run-workflow-1:
    uses: ./.github/workflows/workflow-1.yml
  run-workflow-2:
    needs: [filter, run-workflow-1]
    if: ${{needs.filter.outputs.should-run-workflow-2 == 'true'}}
    uses: ./.github/workflows/workflow-2.yml
  run-workflow-3
    needs: [run-workflow-2]
    uses: ./.github/workflows/workflow-3.yml

As you can see, whether workflow 2 is run or is skipped depends on a conditional. Let's say that these three workflows deploy infrastructure that depends on each other, for example workflow 1 deploys a db, workflow 2 a back end application that needs the db and workflow 3 a front end app that needs the back end. What I want to achieve is that it is possible to conditionally skip run-workflow-2, but still execute run-workflow-3. I can only find solutions that:

• ignore failures in the previous step (e.g. solutions based on always())
• do not run when workflow 2 does not run
• require massive acrobatics to get this to work (f.e. if statement on each step in the jobs or complicated conditionals)

I can think of a solution that would allow this cleanly: instead of needs: have a milder version like depends-on: which allows for the target to be skipped instead of only allowing succeeded.

Alternatively there could also be a conditional option which allows to write a more permissive statement instead of only always(), success() or failure() (f.e.skipped()).

Am I missing something obvious here or is this just not possible?

[nicholasbergesen]

Hi @ImreC,

Just to eliminate an obvious option, If the only important thing is that run-workflow-2 and run-workflow-3 don't run at the same time and the order isn't important you could use needs: [filter, run-workflow-1] as the condition for run-workflow-3 with concurrency that's shared with run-workflow-2. example

should-run-workflow-2: true

should-run-workflow-2: false

[ImreC]

@nicholasbergesen thanks for replying. The order is important so they should run sequentially, but sometimes there are no changes to step 2 and there are changes to step 3. It should still run step 3 regardless of step 2 being skipped. Right now this does not seem possible as a skipped run breaks the flow, so it is impossible to skip step 2. It is not a massive problem. It just makes the whole run more slow and wastes resources.

[nicholasbergesen]

Hi @ImreC,

I agree it doesn't seem like there's a feature available that would allow a convenient way to achieve what you need.

[ImreC]

Solved in a different way

[oerp-odoo]

Can you comment how you solved it?

[Guthers]

@oerp-odoo - I found this thread and it frustrated me. So here is my gist now I have found a solution (I think?)
https://gist.github.com/Guthers/0a9101647ef72abe03aa84ca75fec4e3

[nnutter]

Link to the Stack Overflow source used in the Gist would probably be clearer... Github action job fire when previous job skipped.