[Question/Improvement] GitHub Actions status badge

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Hi there,

I'm curious about the rationale behind the GitHub status badges displaying either "passing" or "failing" statuses:

This seems inconsistent with the actual status displayed in the workflow file, which is labeled as "Success":

There are several reasons why the current naming convention of "passing" or "failing" for GitHub Actions status badges might not be ideal:

• Grammatical Tense:

  • "Passing" and "failing" are present participles, suggesting an ongoing state that could change. "Passed" and "failed" are past participles, indicating a completed action and a final result. The former implies impermanence, while the latter conveys finality.

• Ambiguity:

  • The terms "passing" and "failing" are ambiguous and do not clearly convey the specific status being represented. They could refer to the overall workflow status, individual job status, or something else entirely. More descriptive terms would provide better clarity.

• Inconsistency with Terminology:

  • GitHub's own documentation uses different terminology like "success" and "failure" when referring to the exit codes and statuses of individual actions or steps within a workflow. Using "passing" and "failing" for the overall workflow status is inconsistent with this established terminology.

• Lack of Nuance:

  • A workflow can have more granular statuses beyond just "passing" or "failing". For example, it could be "pending", "cancelled", "skipped", or have a "neutral" status. The binary "passing/failing" doesn't account for these other potential states.

• Misalignment with Industry Standards:

  • In software development and DevOps, more common terminology for build/test statuses includes "success", "failure", "error", etc. Using "passing" and "failing" diverges from these industry conventions without a clear benefit.

Here's a suggestion for improvement:

• For Overall Workflow Status:

  • "Success" - All jobs in the workflow completed successfully.
  • "Failure" - One or more jobs in the workflow failed.
  • "Cancelled" - The workflow was cancelled before completion.
  • "Pending" - The workflow is still running and hasn't completed yet.

• For Individual Job Statuses:

  • "Successful" - The job completed without any errors.
  • "Failed" - The job did not complete successfully due to errors.
  • "Skipped" - The job's conditions were not met, so it was skipped.

This proposed naming:

• Uses clear and unambiguous terms that accurately describe each status.
• Aligns with GitHub's own documentation, which uses "success", "failure", "cancelled", etc., for action/job statuses.
• Follows broader industry conventions for build/test statuses.
• Accounts for more granular statuses beyond just pass/fail.
• Maintains consistency between overall workflow and individual job status terms.

You might find the following resources helpful for further understanding:

• Setting exit codes for actions
• GitHub Actions contexts
• GitHub Actions expressions