Using jobs in a workflow

Overview

A workflow run is made up of one or more jobs, which run in parallel by default. To run jobs sequentially, you can define dependencies on other jobs using the jobs.<job_id>.needs keyword.

Each job runs in a runner environment specified by runs-on.

You can run an unlimited number of jobs as long as you are within the workflow usage limits. For more information, see Usage limits, billing, and administration for GitHub-hosted runners and About self-hosted runners for self-hosted runner usage limits.

If you need to find the unique identifier of a job running in a workflow run, you can use the GitHub Enterprise Server API. For more information, see REST API endpoints for GitHub Actions.

Setting an ID for a job

Use jobs.<job_id> to give your job a unique identifier. The key job_id is a string and its value is a map of the job's configuration data. You must replace <job_id> with a string that is unique to the jobs object. The <job_id> must start with a letter or _ and contain only alphanumeric characters, -, or _.

Example: Creating jobs

In this example, two jobs have been created, and their job_id values are my_first_job and my_second_job.

jobs:
  my_first_job:
    name: My first job
  my_second_job:
    name: My second job

Setting a name for a job

Use jobs.<job_id>.name to set a name for the job, which is displayed in the GitHub UI.

Defining prerequisite jobs

Use jobs.<job_id>.needs to identify any jobs that must complete successfully before this job will run. It can be a string or array of strings. If a job fails or is skipped, all jobs that need it are skipped unless the jobs use a conditional expression that causes the job to continue. If a run contains a series of jobs that need each other, a failure or skip applies to all jobs in the dependency chain from the point of failure or skip onwards. If you would like a job to run even if a job it is dependent on did not succeed, use the always() conditional expression in jobs.<job_id>.if.

Example: Requiring successful dependent jobs

jobs:
  job1:
  job2:
    needs: job1
  job3:
    needs: [job1, job2]

In this example, job1 must complete successfully before job2 begins, and job3 waits for both job1 and job2 to complete.

The jobs in this example run sequentially:

1. job1
2. job2
3. job3

Example: Not requiring successful dependent jobs

jobs:
  job1:
  job2:
    needs: job1
  job3:
    if: ${{ always() }}
    needs: [job1, job2]

In this example, job3 uses the always() conditional expression so that it always runs after job1 and job2 have completed, regardless of whether they were successful. For more information, see Evaluate expressions in workflows and actions.