Manually running a workflow

When a workflow is configured to run on the workflow_dispatch event, you can run the workflow using the Actions tab on GitHub, GitHub CLI, or the REST API.

Tool navigation

In this article

Note

GitHub-hosted runners are not currently supported on GitHub Enterprise Server. You can see more information about planned future support on the GitHub public roadmap.

Configuring a workflow to run manually

To run a workflow manually, the workflow must be configured to run on the workflow_dispatch event.

To trigger the workflow_dispatch event, your workflow must be in the default branch. For more information about configuring the workflow_dispatch event, see Events that trigger workflows.

Write access to the repository is required to perform these steps.

Running a workflow

  1. On GitHub, navigate to the main page of the repository.

  2. Under your repository name, click Actions.

    Screenshot of the tabs for the "github/docs" repository. The "Actions" tab is highlighted with an orange outline.

  3. In the left sidebar, click the name of the workflow you want to run.

    Screenshot of the "Actions" page. In the left sidebar, a workflow name is highlighted with an outline in dark orange.

  4. Above the list of workflow runs, click the Run workflow button.

    Note

    To see the Run workflow button, your workflow file must use the workflow_dispatch event trigger. Only workflow files that use the workflow_dispatch event trigger will have the option to run the workflow manually using the Run workflow button. For more information about configuring the workflow_dispatch event, see Events that trigger workflows.

    Screenshot of a workflow page. Above the list of workflow runs, a button, labeled "Run workflow", is outlined in dark orange.

  5. Select the Branch dropdown menu and click a branch to run the workflow on.

  6. If the workflow requires input, fill in the fields.

  7. Click Run workflow.

Note

To learn more about GitHub CLI, see About GitHub CLI.

To run a workflow, use the workflow run subcommand. Replace the workflow parameter with either the name, ID, or file name of the workflow you want to run. For example, "Link Checker", 1234567, or "link-check-test.yml". If you don't specify a workflow, GitHub CLI returns an interactive menu for you to choose a workflow.

gh workflow run WORKFLOW

If your workflow accepts inputs, GitHub CLI will prompt you to enter them. Alternatively, you can use -f or -F to add an input in key=value format. Use -F to read from a file.

gh workflow run greet.yml -f name=mona -f greeting=hello -F data=@myfile.txt

You can also pass inputs as JSON by using standard input.

echo '{"name":"mona", "greeting":"hello"}' | gh workflow run greet.yml --json

To run a workflow on a branch other than the repository's default branch, use the --ref flag.

gh workflow run WORKFLOW --ref BRANCH

To view the progress of the workflow run, use the run watch subcommand and select the run from the interactive list.

gh run watch

Running a workflow using the REST API

When using the REST API, you configure the inputs and ref as request body parameters. If the inputs are omitted, the default values defined in the workflow file are used.

Note

You can define up to 10 inputs for a workflow_dispatch event.

For more information about using the REST API, see REST API endpoints for workflows.