Github Actions: using workflow_run based on new tags

Question

I have two workflows: CI (for continuous integration) and CD (for continuous delivery). Both are working fine individually. My goal is to run the CD workflow only when:

• A new tag like v1.1.1 is created on the master branch
• The CI workflow is finished

To achieve my goal I'm using the workflow_run event. These are the snippets of my workflows files:

ci.yml:

name: CI

on:
  push:
    tags: v[1-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+
    
  pull_request:
    branches: [develop, hotfix*]

cd.yml

name: CD

on:
  workflow_run:
    workflows: [CI] 
    branches: [master]
    types:     
      - completed

The current behavior is: when a tag is created in the master branch only the CI workflow run. I've tried putting tags: v[1-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+ in the workflow_run but the behavior is the same.

My question is: how can I achieve my goal? Is it possible?

Answer 1

According to docs you can only use branches option and not tags for workflow_run so I'm afraid that's why your current setting doesn't work.

You have some alternatives though:

1. You can turn your CD workflow into action and run it as part of your CI with condition: .github/actiond/cd/action.yml:

name: CD
description: Run CD
runs:
  using: composite
  steps:
    - run: echo "Success!"
      shell: bash

CI:

name: CI

on:
  push:
    tags: v[1-9]+.[0-9]+.[0-9]+
  pull_request:
    branches: [develop, hotfix*]

jobs:
  sucess:
    name: Log success
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - run: echo "Success!"
      - name: Run CD
        if: github.event_name == 'push' && contains(github.event.ref, '/tags/')
        uses: ./.github/actions/cd

2. Have it as a separate job that is dependant on CI job using needs option

Converting it to action makes for better encapsulation IMO although requires some work.