Warning You probably don't need to install this custom action.

Instead, use the native concurrency property to cancel workflows, for example:
concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: ${{ github.ref != 'refs/heads/main' }}
Read GitHub's official documentation to learn more.

Cancel Workflow Action

This is a GitHub Action that will cancel any previous runs that are not completed for a given workflow.

This includes runs with a status of queued or in_progress.

How does it work?

When you git push, this GitHub Action will capture the current Branch and SHA. It will query GitHub's API to find previous workflow runs that match the Branch but do not match the SHA. These in-progress runs will be canceled leaving only this run, or the latest run.

Usage

Typically, you will want to add this action as the first step in a workflow so it can cancel itself on the next push.

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Cancel Previous Runs
        uses: styfle/cancel-workflow-action
      #- name: Run Tests
      #  uses: actions/setup-node
      #  run: node test.js
      # ... etc

Versioning

It is recommended to pin a specific version of this action so you don't automatically upgrade to the latest which could introduce breaking changes.

uses: styfle/cancel-workflow-action@0.9.1

Notice there is no v prefix, just the @major.minor.patch version.

Visit Releases to find the latest version at the top of the page.

Warning

You might run into "the `uses' attribute must be a path, a Docker image, or owner/repo@ref" error if you don't specify a version.

Advanced: Canceling Other Workflows

In some cases, you may wish to avoid modifying all your workflows and instead create a new workflow that cancels your other workflows. This can be useful when you have a problem with workflows getting queued.

Visit https://api.github.com/repos/:org/:repo/actions/workflows to find the Workflow ID(s) you wish to automaticaly cancel.
Add a new file .github/workflows/cancel.yml with the following:

name: Cancel
on: [push]
jobs:
  cancel:
    name: 'Cancel Previous Runs'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    timeout-minutes: 3
    steps:
      - uses: styfle/cancel-workflow-action
        with:
          workflow_id: 479426

Note: workflow_id can be a Workflow ID (number) or Workflow File Name (string)
Note: workflow_id also accepts a comma separated list if you need to cancel multiple workflows
Note: workflow_id accepts the value all, which will cancel all the workflows running in the branch

Advanced: Pull Requests from Forks

The default GitHub token access is unable to cancel workflows for pull_request when a pull request is opened from a fork. Therefore, a special setup using workflow_run, which also works for push, is needed. Create a .github/workflows/cancel.yml with the following instead and replace "CI" with the workflow name that contains the pull_request workflow:

name: Cancel
on:
  workflow_run:
    workflows: ["CI"]
    types:
      - requested
jobs:
  cancel:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: styfle/cancel-workflow-action
      with:
        workflow_id: ${{ github.event.workflow.id }}

Advanced: Ignore SHA

In some cases, you may wish to cancel workflows when you close a Pull Request. Because this is not a push event, the SHA will be the same, so you must use the ignore_sha option.

on:
  pull_request:
    types: [closed]
jobs:
  cleanup:
    name: 'Cleanup After PR Closed'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    timeout-minutes: 3
    steps:
      - name: Cancel build runs
        uses: styfle/cancel-workflow-action
        with:
          ignore_sha: true
          workflow_id: 479426

Advanced: All But Latest

Because this action can only cancel workflows if it is actually being run, it only helps if the pipeline isn't saturated and there are still runners available to schedule the workflow.

By default, this action does not cancel any workflows created after itself. The all_but_latest flags allows the action to cancel itself and all later-scheduled workflows, leaving only the latest.

name: Cancel
on: [push]
jobs:
  cancel:
    name: 'Cancel Previous Runs'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    timeout-minutes: 3
    steps:
      - uses: styfle/cancel-workflow-action
        with:
          all_but_latest: true

Advanced: Skip runs that are in progress

Some workflows may be dangerous to cancel when they are in progress. If you want to play safe and cancel only workflows that are in state waiting, most likely waiting for approval to be deployed in a protected environment, use only_status to only cancel runs with a specific status.

name: Cancel
on: [push]
jobs:
  cancel:
    name: 'Cancel Previous Runs'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    timeout-minutes: 3
    steps:
      - uses: styfle/cancel-workflow-action
        with:
          only_status: 'waiting'

Advanced: Token Permissions

No change to permissions is required by default. The instructions below are for improved control over of those permissions.

By default, GitHub creates the GITHUB_TOKEN for Actions with some read/write permissions. It may be a good practice to switch to read-only permissions by default. Visit the dedicated documentation page for details.

Permissions can be set for all Jobs in a Workflow or a specific Job, see the reference manual page. cancel-workflow-action only requires write access to the actions scope, so it is enough to have:

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      actions: write
    steps:
      - name: Cancel Previous Runs
        uses: styfle/cancel-workflow-action
        with:
          access_token: ${{ github.token }}

Note : This is typical when global access is set to be restrictive. Only this job will elevate those permissions.

Contributing

Clone this repo
Run yarn install
Edit ./src/index.ts
Run yarn build
Run yarn format
Commit changes including ./dist/index.js bundle

MichaelDeBoey / cancel-workflow-action