How to set a default value for a workflow_dispatch variable?

[kaihendry]

I see people using workflow_dispatch github.event.inputs as I am here: ltabus/up.yml at 8e896bb75330757e440fe7f429aaa9ead7cfd90e · kaihendry/ltabus · GitHub

But how do you set a default if the job is run on a push?!

[wechuli]

Unfortunately, this is not possible. There is no way for you to define inputs on a push event. The github.event.inputs context will contain key value pairs only if the workflow was triggered by a workflow_dispatch event.

docs.github.com

Events that trigger workflows - GitHub Docs

//docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/events-that-trigger-workflows

docs.github.com

Events that trigger workflows - GitHub Docs

//docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/events-that-trigger-workflows

[kaihendry]

I keep on getting bitten by this issue. I want to deploy to staging by default. And then

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And then run production once I’ve manually tested staging:

I’m really tired of:

image865×266 16.7 KB

Is there no sane workaround?

[cotyhamilton]

@kaihendry Have an approval on production environment. Then staging deploys and waits for production to be approved

[Simran-B]

While not DRY, this is a possible workaround:

stage: ${{ github.event.inputs.stage || 'staging' }}

Or like this, using a pseudo-ternary operator:

stage: ${{ github.event_name == 'push' && 'staging' || github.event.inputs.stage }}

[andy-brainome]

I just ran across this issue myself. I want to define inputs as per workflow_dispatch with default values that are defined when using other event triggers.

[rokeno]

I guess you are not alone. I need this too, in case i have branch push and i would like the values to be there.
How is Github Actions going to replace Azure DevOps with so many lacking features? I wonder…

From official documentation:
Events that trigger workflows - GitHub Docs (check the picture and see the first entry)

You can see above a default and i should be to use that as default value, no matter what!

[IanTaylor-catapult]

Ran into the same issue. Wasted a couple hours trying to figure out why inputs weren't passing. This should really be a feature request. Default values for inputs should persist across event types.

[ndom91]

Came across this via Google and just wanted to chime in that workflow_dispatch inputs do now have defaults available, see: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-workflows/workflow-syntax-for-github-actions#example-of-onworkflow_dispatchinputs

Ex:

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      logLevel:
        description: 'Log level'
        required: true
        default: 'warning'
        type: choice
        options:
          - info
          - warning
          - debug

[ifeomaro]

The default inputs are null for the push event, but they work as expected for the workflow_dispatch event.

[ndom91]

Yeah, good clarification. These defaults are only applied when triggered via workflow_dispatch

[smerfort]

Did anyone find a solution for this? I'd like to choose between runner labels on workflow_dispatch but still provide a default value if the job is triggered through a different condition like push

[ndom91]

@smerfort here's the workflow in which I applied this. So basically the workflow_dispatch event has its defaults at the top, as shown in the comment above. But then further on down its got a step like this in order to set defaults for when the workflow is triggered by anything but the workflow_dispatch event. Because in that case the workflow_dispatch variables and defaults, etc. don't get applied.

- name: Consume input variables
  shell: bash
  if: ${{ !github.event.workflow_run }}
  run: |
    echo "channel=${{ github.event.inputs.channel || 'nightly' }}" >> $GITHUB_ENV
    echo "bump=${{ github.event.inputs.bump || 'patch' }}" >> $GITHUB_ENV

Source: https://github.com/gitbutlerapp/gitbutler/blob/master/.github/workflows/publish.yaml

Hope that helps!