How do you include a file with a reusable workflow?

[kthompson]

Reusable Workflows

General

Body

Given a file structure like below:

calleerepo/
calleerepo/.github/workflows/myworkflow.yaml
calleerepo/.github/workflows/script.js

callerrepo/.github/workflows/default.yaml

And

• callerrepo/.github/workflows/default.yaml calls the reusable workflow calleerepo/.github/workflows/myworkflow.yaml
• calleerepo/.github/workflows/myworkflow.yaml depends on calleerepo/.github/workflows/script.js

When myworkflow.yaml is called from default.yaml it says that the dependent file script.js isnt found.

Is there special handling for how myworkflow.yaml should reference script.js? Currently it cannot detect the existence of script.js.

[nirav-gajera]

Yes, there is special handling for how myworkflow.yaml should reference script.js. When you call a reusable workflow, GitHub Actions will copy the contents of the workflow file to the current working directory. This means that the script.js file will not be available in the current working directory unless you explicitly reference it.

To reference the script.js file, you can use the uses keyword. The uses keyword allows you to import a workflow file from another repository. In your case, you would use the following syntax:

uses: calleerepo/.github/workflows/script.js@main

The @main part of the syntax specifies the branch of the repository that the workflow file is located in. In this case, the workflow file is located in the main branch of the calleerepo repository.

Once you have referenced the script.js file, it will be available in the current working directory and you can use it in your workflow.

Here is an example of how you can call the myworkflow.yaml workflow from the default.yaml workflow:

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: calleerepo/.github/workflows/myworkflow.yaml@main

In this example, the myworkflow.yaml workflow is called from the build job. The myworkflow.yaml workflow will be copied to the current working directory and the script.js file will be available.

[kthompson]

Thanks for the reply. I finally got around to testing this out but I don't quite understand where I would put the uses: specifier in the callee workflow. If i put it under steps I get an error indicating that it must be at the job level. If I put it at the job level, I get a different error invalid value workflow reference: workflow file should have either a '.yml' or '.yaml' file extension. It doesn't seem to like it at the top level either so maybe I am missing something?

[sudhakarinka]

@nirav-gajera ,
are you sure this works or should one use actions/GitHub-script.

Repo1 onPR--> repo2-->Workflow that invoke another reusable workflow(eorkfl9w_call) and typescript task.

[marcransome]

@kthompson What you're trying to achieve doesn't appear to be documented anywhere. Having said that, you can clone the repository containing the reusable workflow and associated files in its own step, thereby making the files available to subsequent steps in the workflow:

For example, given a repository named calling-workflow-repo with the following structure:

.github/
└── workflows/
    └── calling-workflow.yml

And given a separate repository named called-workflow-repo, containing a reusable workflow named called-workflow.yml and associated config file named called-workflow-config.json:

.github/
└── workflows/
    ├── called-workflow.yml
    └── called-workflow-config.json

To access the JSON config file from the reusable workflow—given that it executes in the context of the calling workflow—clone the repository first¹:

called-workflow-repo/.github/workflows/called-workflow.yml:

name: called-workflow
on:
  workflow_call:
jobs:
  called-workflow-job:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      with:
        repository: '<owner>/called-workflow-repo'
        path: 'called-workflow-repo'
        ref: 'main'
    - name: Print config file
      run: |
        cat called-workflow-repo/.github/workflows/called-workflow-config.json

The path value used with the the actions/checkout action is relative to the $GITHUB_WORKSPACE environment variable (or github.workspace). Since this is also the default working directory, you can refer to the config file using a relative path in subsequent steps (e.g. called-workflow-repo/<path>) without the need to prefix it with $GITHUB_WORKSPACE/, as seen in the Print config file step.

The calling workflow can be written simply as:

calling-workflow-repo/.github/workflows/calling-workflow.yml:

name: calling-workflow
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
  calling-workflow-job:
    uses: <owner>/called-workflow-repo/.github/workflows/called-workflow.yml@main

Footnotes

1. For simplicity sake, it is assumed that all content in the called-workflow-repo resides on the main branch, and this is the branch named as the ref value in the actions/checkout action. Consider scenarios where the actions/checkout ref and calling workflow uses: ref may differ. It isn't currently possibly to determine the ref of the called workflow within the workflow (see Reusable Workflows - how to reference own called repo from within a reusable workflow? #18602). ↩

[ThiefMaster]

Now the only missing question is how to get the repository: '<owner>/called-workflow-repo' without hardcoding it or passing it as input... Otherwise it's a huge pain when testing things by pushing to your own fork of the workflow repo...