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Enabling debug logging

In this article

If the workflow logs do not provide enough detail to diagnose why a workflow, job, or step is not working as expected, you can enable additional debug logging.

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.

These extra logs are enabled by setting secrets in the repository containing the workflow, so the same permissions requirements will apply:

  • To create secrets for a personal account repository, you must be the repository owner. To create secrets for an organization repository, you must have admin access.
  • To create secrets for an environment in a personal account repository, you must be the repository owner. To create secrets for an environment in an organization repository, you must have admin access. For more information on environments, see "Using environments for deployment."
  • To create secrets at the organization level, you must have admin access.

For more information on setting secrets, see "Encrypted secrets."

Enabling runner diagnostic logging

Runner diagnostic logging provides additional log files that contain information about how a runner is executing a job. Two extra log files are added to the log archive:

  • The runner process log, which includes information about coordinating and setting up runners to execute jobs.
  • The worker process log, which logs the execution of a job.
  1. To enable runner diagnostic logging, set the following secret in the repository that contains the workflow: ACTIONS_RUNNER_DEBUG to true.
  2. To download runner diagnostic logs, download the log archive of the workflow run. The runner diagnostic logs are contained in the runner-diagnostic-logs folder. For more information on downloading logs, see "Using workflow run logs."

Enabling step debug logging

Step debug logging increases the verbosity of a job's logs during and after a job's execution.

  1. To enable step debug logging, set the following secret in the repository that contains the workflow: ACTIONS_STEP_DEBUG to true.
  2. After setting the secret, more debug events are shown in the step logs. For more information, see "Using workflow run logs."