This action triggers another GitHub Actions workflow, using the workflow_dispatch event.
The workflow must be configured for this event type e.g. on: [workflow_dispatch]

This allows you to chain workflows, the classic use case is have a CI build workflow, trigger a CD release/deploy workflow when it completes. Allowing you to maintain separate workflows for CI and CD, and pass data between them as required.

For details of the workflow_dispatch even see this blog post introducing this type of trigger

Note 1. The GitHub UI will report flows triggered by this action as "manually triggered" even though they have been run programmatically via another workflow and the API

Note 2. If you want to reference the target workflow by ID, you will need to list them with the following REST API call curl https://api.github.com/repos/{{owner}}/{{repo}}/actions/workflows -H "Authorization: token {{pat-token}}"

This action is a fork of benc-uk/workflow-dispatch to add support for waiting for workflow completion.

Required. The name or the filename or ID of the workflow to trigger and run.

Required. A GitHub access token (PAT) with write access to the repo in question. NOTE. The automatically provided token e.g. ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} can not be used, GitHub prevents this token from being able to fire the workflow_dispatch and repository_dispatch event. The reasons are explained in the docs.

The solution is to manually create a PAT and store it as a secret e.g. ${{ secrets.PERSONAL_TOKEN }}

Optional. The inputs to pass to the workflow (if any are configured), this must be a JSON encoded string, e.g. { "myInput": "foobar" }

Optional. The Git reference used with the triggered workflow run. The reference can be a branch, tag, or a commit SHA. If omitted the context ref of the triggering workflow is used. If you want to trigger on pull requests and run the target workflow in the context of the pull request branch, set the ref to ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.ref }}

Optional. The default behavior is to trigger workflows in the same repo as the triggering workflow, if you wish to trigger in another GitHub repo "externally", then provide the owner + repo name with slash between them e.g. microsoft/vscode

Optional. If true, this action will actively poll the workflow run to get the result of the triggered workflow. It is enabled by default. If the triggered workflow fails due to either failure, timed_out or cancelled then the step that has triggered the other workflow will be marked as failed too.

Optional. The time to wait to mark triggered workflow has timed out. The time must be suffixed by the time unit e.g. 10m. Time unit can be s for seconds, m for minutes and h for hours. It has no effect if wait-for-completion is false. Default is 1h

Optional. The time to wait between two polls for getting run status. The time must be suffixed by the time unit e.g. 10m. Time unit can be s for seconds, m for minutes and h for hours. It has no effect if wait-for-completion is false. Default is 30s. /!\ Do not use a value that is too small to avoid API Rate limit exceeded

The result of the triggered workflow. May be one of success, failure, cancelled, timed_out, skipped, neutral, action_required. The step in your workflow will fail if the triggered workflow completes with failure, cancelled or timed_out. Other workflow conlusion are considered success. Only available if wait-for-completion is true

- name: Invoke workflow without inputs. Wait for result
  uses: aurelien-baudet/workflow-dispatch@v2
  with:
    workflow: My Workflow
    token: ${{ secrets.PERSONAL_TOKEN }}

- name: Invoke workflow without inputs. Don't wait for result
  uses: aurelien-baudet/workflow-dispatch@v2
  with:
    workflow: My Workflow
    token: ${{ secrets.PERSONAL_TOKEN }}
    wait-for-completion: false

- name: Invoke workflow with inputs
  uses: aurelien-baudet/workflow-dispatch@v2
  with:
    workflow: Another Workflow
    token: ${{ secrets.PERSONAL_TOKEN }}
    inputs: '{ "message": "blah blah", "debug": true }'

- name: Invoke workflow in another repo with inputs
  uses: aurelien-baudet/workflow-dispatch@v2
  with:
    workflow: Some Workflow
    repo: benc-uk/example
    token: ${{ secrets.PERSONAL_TOKEN }}
    inputs: '{ "message": "blah blah", "debug": true }'

- name: Invoke workflow and handle result
  id: trigger-step
  uses: aurelien-baudet/workflow-dispatch@v2
  with:
    workflow: Another Workflow
    token: ${{ secrets.PERSONAL_TOKEN }}
- name: Another step that can handle the result
  if: always()
  run: echo "Another Workflow conclusion: ${{ steps.trigger-step.outputs.workflow-conclusion }}"