GitHub Actions changelog

New release: GitHub Actions is now available in a new limited public beta. This version offers a new workflow configuration and built-in continuous integration and continuous deployment capabilities. We strongly recommend you avoid using it for high-value workflows and content during this public beta period. To request to join the limited public beta, see the GitHub Actions page. For more information, see "About GitHub Actions" in the GitHub Help documentation.

GitHub Support will only provide support for the YAML syntax and no longer provides support for the HCL syntax.

If you participated in the limited public beta and created workflows with the HCL syntax GitHub Actions, you will need to upgrade to the new limited public beta that uses YAML syntax. When your repository is eligible to upgrade, you'll see an invitation in your repository. You must accept the invitation before you can use the new limited public beta.

Once you've upgraded, any workflows that you created with the HCL syntax will need to be updated to the new YAML syntax. To automatically convert your workflows, see "Migrating GitHub Actions from HCL syntax to YAML syntax" in the GitHub Help documentation.

The GitHub Actions changelog is a list of backwards-compatible changes, breaking changes, and new features during the public beta period.

GitHub Actions Rate Limiting

We now apply rate limit rules to individual builds, rather than individual webhook events.

Our current rate limit rule is 20 workflow executions per minute. In the event that you need to execute larger builds, we have included a burst of 15 additional executions available to you in the same minute window. We expect to update these limits as we continue to expand the beta and better understand how beta participants are using GitHub Actions.

Scheduling Workflows

You can now schedule workflow executions in the main.workflow file or visual workflow editor. View all upcoming scheduled workflows in the Actions tab.

Setting up scheduled workflows

You can schedule workflows in the main.workflow file or from the visual workflow editor. Both methods use cron syntax to set the time. See "Scheduling a workflow" to learn more about the syntax used in the workflow file.

To schedule a workflow using the visual editor, select scheduled from the Run dropdown menu and use cron syntax to specify the date and time. Scheduled events use the UTC timezone. For example, schedule(0 0 * * *) will run every night at midnight UTC.

Scheduled workflow

Cancelling GitHub Actions workflows

You can now cancel a running GitHub Actions workflow in the Actions tab of a repository.

Cancelling a GitHub Actions workflow will cancel all individual action blocks within the workflow.

Publish and Discover GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions can now be automatically published to GitHub Marketplace for free -- no strings attached.

Discover and install new GitHub Actions

Feel free to visit GitHub Marketplace to see the new actions that are available to install today. If you don't see your own action, visit your action's repository to publish it directly to GitHub Marketplace.

Publish your GitHub Action

Visit the repository where your action lives and you should see a message to publish your action. If this is unclear, visit our docs for a full overview on how to publish.

Actions support all events on public repositories

GitHub Actions can now be triggered on all supported actions events in public repositories.

We now provide full functionality for GitHub Actions to be triggered on events in public repositories.

Enabling Actions on Public Repositories

GitHub Actions can now be triggered on push events in public repositories by repository owners.

One of our most popular requests from the limited public beta has been the ability to use GitHub Actions on public repositories. We now provide some of this funcitonality by allowing GitHub Actions to be triggered on push events in public repositories so you can start working on public Actions workflows. We will continue to work on providing full functionality for public repositories.

GitHub Actions can now have neutral status

  • October 24, 2018
  • Avatar for piki piki

GitHub Actions can now use an exit code to indicate neutral status

To enhance the current failure and success exit codes that integrators can use in GitHub Actions, we're introducing a new feature to indicate when an action has a neutral status. Actions with a neutral status stop a workflow from continuing to execute. We've also added some new documentation about exit codes and statuses.