Github Actions: how to run a workflow created on a non-master branch from the workflow_dispatch event?

Question

Can someone help me understand the behaviour of the Github Actions tab? As somebody new to Actions working on a third party repo I would like to be able to create an action on a branch and execute it on the workflow_dispatch event. I have not succeeded in doing this but I have discovered the following:

• The Action tab will change the branch where it finds workflows and action code based on the branch relating to the last executed workflow. e.g. if some workflow is executed from the Action tab using the Run Workflow button and the Use Workflow From dropdown is set to some branch, Branch-A, then the contents of the Workflows panel on the left hand side of the Actions tab will be taken from Branch-A's version of .github/.
• The This workflow has a workflow_dispatch event trigger. text does not change with the branch. It seems to be taken from master. Alternatively, it may be being taken from the last set of results. I have not tested for that because either way it is not helpful behaviour.

The workaround is the execute on a push event which is OK but that seems out of kilter with Github's high standards of design.

Does the above sound a) about right and b) whichever way you look at it, not optimal behaviour? Or, is there a better approach to building and testing actions?

Answer 1

You can run a workflow that is still in development in a feature-branch from the command line, with Github CLI. The documentation says:

To run a workflow on a branch other than the repository's default branch, use the --ref flag.

gh workflow run workflow --ref branch-name

To add input parameters, run it like this:

gh workflow run workflow --ref branch-name -f myparameter=myvalue

Answer 2

You can run your workflow through the GitHub CLI, but you will first need to make sure it's run before.

gh workflow list

If your workflow isn't in that list (by name), then add pull_request: and create a pull request so that the workflow is registered, once.

name: 'My Workflow'
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      parameter:
        description: My Parameter
  pull_request: -- Add this here
...

Once you've created a pull request, you should see 'My Workflow' when you run gh workflow list. Once that's done, you can remove the added line.

Finally, now run:

gh workflow run 'My Workflow' --ref my-branch -f parameter=value

This should run your workflow dispatch from a feature branch.