[REQUEST] Adding branch filter to delete trigger in github actions

[logyball]

Github action supports a delete trigger to kick off workflows. It is very useful for cleaning up resources deployed via temporary deployments. In the same way that the push trigger supports a branch-based filter, it would be an awesome feature if the delete trigger also supported filtering based on branch name.

e.g.

on:
  delete:
    branches:
      - feature/*

Would only trigger actions based on deletions of branches matching the feature/* semantic.

Thanks for reading!

[chrispat]

Hi @logyball thank you for your feedback.

I agree this would be a nice improvement. I have added this to our internal backlog for the team to prioritize.

[triethuynh1408]

Please done this feature. I need it :D

[willipsantos]

I need this feature too.
this will help us a lot

[cee-money]

Yes, this would be ideal! Just wondering where on the roadmap this enhancement is? @chrispat

[markovar]

has this being done already? 🙏

[ThomasMarcelo]

I also need this!
We have dynamic environments based on specific branch names. The workflow for destroying the infrastructure of these branches is triggered using on: delete. But now it triggers on every branch deletion. I have to use if statements on every step to prevent them from running for non-matching branches, and it ruins our workflow runs history.

[gberche-orange]

Also it is currently hard to discover that on:delete does not yet support a nested branches object

The json schema should reject any object within the delete
https://github.com/SchemaStore/schemastore/blob/f0aa8573dff529d5122970500bab36859ff39f10/src/schemas/json/github-workflow.json#L1035-L1039

[pneigel-ca]

I am using GHES 3.5.

I have worked around this by declaring an if condition at the beginning of the workflow:

name: Branch Deployment Cleanup Pipeline
on: delete
jobs:
  destroy:
    if: |
      github.event.ref_type =='branch' && 
      startswith(github.event.ref, '<prefix>')

If these two conditions are not met (misnamed branches, tags), it will result in this:

[constgen]

But the workflow run still is present in the history. It may confuse when you delete a lot of Pull Request branches

[pneigel-ca]

This is true. It's not a replacement for the feature, but a workaround with some compromise.

[kostiuchenkodg]

I also need this feature and if-statement is not working for me. I need to trigger workflow on the deletion branch with a specific name, but it's skipped every time

`name: Cleanup

on:
  delete:

jobs:
  delete-product-version:
    if: github.event.ref_type == 'branch' && startsWith(github.event.ref, 'refs/heads/sc-')`

also tried this one, but it's skipped everytime too:

if: startsWith(github.event.ref, 'refs/heads/sc-')

[rockcheung2004]

github.event.ref in the delete event is just the branch name without refs/heads/

so in your case this may work:
if: github.event.ref_type == 'branch' && startsWith(github.event.ref, 'sc-')

It is different from the github.ref that you get from other event payloads, which includes the refs/heads/.

[kostiuchenkodg]

@rockcheung2004 Thanks, you've made my day

[rockcheung2004]

I would also suggest removing the limitation where delete can only be triggered after the workflow is merged into the main branch's code. You cannot first test your workflow before merging into main.

[chrispat]

In the case of delete the branch is gone before the workflow runs which means we can't run the workflow from that branch. Given that we have to pick a consistent place from which to run the workflow and the default branch is the only logical option.

[Howu48]

Hi @chrispat . This feature is not in docs(and vscode's gh actions extention warns me), but it worked well....... 🤔
has this being done already?
(I'm using GHES 3.9)
never mind. it was just server issue

[OlesYudin]

Hi @Howu48! Could you please share your configuration of the job? I tested this feature in the non-Enterprise version of GitHub and it did not work as expected.
Here is my test config:

name: TestOnDelete

on:
  delete:
    branches:
      - 'test-*'

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    ...

Using this configuration each time I delete a branch - GitHub runs a new action, but in my case, I need to run the action only if delete a special branch, for example, "test-1".

Solution with the condition in a job works well, but it generates a lot of skipped actions.

if: github.event.ref_type == 'branch' && startsWith(github.event.ref, 'test-')

[Howu48]

Hi, and Sorry. A few days after the comment, I found out it was just a temporary our GHES server issue (other actions weren't triggered either).😓
So currently, this feature is not available.

[OlesYudin]

Thank you for your response 😢