Workflow Design and Control Flow

Designing Workflows with GitHub Actions

Content consolidated from Designing_Workflows_with_GitHub_Actions.md and Workflow_Design_Getting_Started_and_Gitignore.md (intro to GHA, triggers, jobs/steps, actions vs run, environments/secrets overview, getting started, .gitignore guidance).

Preserved content excerpts (from Designing_Workflows_with_GitHub_Actions.md, Workflow_Design_Getting_Started_and_Gitignore.md)

What is a GitHub Actions workflow?

• A workflow is a YAML file in .github/workflows/ describing triggers (on:), jobs, and steps.
• Runners are ephemeral by default; each workflow run starts from a clean machine image.
• Jobs can run in parallel; use needs: to create dependencies.

Minimal “build” workflow skeleton

name: CI
on:
  pull_request:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: echo "build commands here"

.gitignore principle

• Do not commit generated artifacts (build outputs, caches, logs, secrets).
• Prefer committing source, configs, and lockfiles; regenerate outputs in CI.

Control Flow in GitHub Actions

Consolidated detailed control flow guidance from Control_Flow_in_GitHub_Actions.md and chapter-style overview from Controlling_Workflow_Execution.md.

Includes: default success(), failure(), cancelled(), always(), needs, continue-on-error, synchronization patterns, conditional expressions, examples and anti-patterns.

Preserved content excerpts (from Control_Flow_in_GitHub_Actions.md, Controlling_Workflow_Execution.md)

• Every step has an implicit if: success() unless you override it.
• Use these common status functions:
• success(), failure(), cancelled(), always()
• Use continue-on-error: true when a step can fail without poisoning the job.
• Use needs: to express job dependencies and enable DAG-style workflows.

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Run tests
        run: npm test
        continue-on-error: true

      - name: Always upload logs
        if: always()
        run: echo "upload logs here"