[GitHub Actions] Output from called reusable workflows via env context or GITHUB_ENV is not supported

[iamazeem]

Code of Conduct

• I have read and agree to the GitHub Docs project's Code of Conduct

What article on docs.github.com is affected?

Reusable Workflows
https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-workflows/reusing-workflows

Reusable Workflows: Limitations
https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-workflows/reusing-workflows#limitations

Reusable Workflows: Using outputs from a reusable workflow
https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-workflows/reusing-workflows#using-outputs-from-a-reusable-workflow

What part(s) of the article would you like to see updated?

According to the Limitations:

Any environment variables set in an env context defined at the workflow level in the caller workflow are not propagated to the called workflow.

The opposite is also not supported but it's not listed under the Limitations section.

Using outputs from a reusable workflow also does not mention anything about env context or GITHUB_ENV as it's mainly focused on the output parameters.

Adding this (i.e. env context or GITHUB_ENV cannot be used to set env vars for output purposes) under the Limitations section would be helpful.

Thanks!

Additional information

No response

[cmwilson21]

@iamazeem Thanks so much for opening an issue! I'll triage this for the team to take a look 👀

[hubwriter]

@iamazeem - Thanks for raising this. Would the following fix this issue?

In Limitations (Markdown source file here), after the existing bullet point "Any environment variables set in an env context defined at the workflow level in the caller workflow are not propagated to the called workflow." add:

• Similarly, environment variables set in the env context defined in the called workflow are not accessible in the env context in the caller workflow. Instead you must use outputs of the reusable workflow. For more information, see "[AUTOTITLE](/actions/using-workflows/reusing-workflows#using-outputs-from-a-reusable-workflow)."

Then at the end of the list of limitations, add:

• Reusable workflows are called directly within a job, and not from within a job step. You cannot, therefore, use GITHUB_ENV to pass values to job steps in the caller workflow.

[iamazeem]

@hubwriter: LGTM. 👍 That would definitely help.

[hubwriter]

@iamazeem - Thanks for confirming.

Feel free for yourself (or anyone else) to open a PR to make this change. 🙇‍♂️

If you haven't contributed to the docs before, please take a look at our contributing guidelines.

[iamazeem]

@hubwriter: PR #25700 created.