If you're not specific which version to use of an action in a Github workflow, will it use the latest version?

[DanielGSoftware]

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Hi everyone, I have a question regarding specifying a version to use when using a Github actions package. Let's assume I have the a simple workflow file that contains a step where I use an action.

    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v3

Here I define the version to be use to be v3. You can also put, for example, v3.2.5, which is the latest version.

My question is, if you just define the version as v3, which version is being used? 3.0.0 or the latest version 3.2.5?

Thanks in advance and sorry if this has already been asked. I tried to search it but couldn't find the answer.

[airtower-luna]

The answer is that it depends on the repository the action is in. The part after the @ must be a valid Git ref (branch or tag name) or commit ID in the action repository. actions/checkout@v3 will simply use whichever commit the v3 tag or branch in the actions/checkout repository points at.

If you look at the list of tags for actions/checkout, you can see that currently (as I'm writing this) the v3 and v3.3.0 tags point at the same commit:

But keep in mind: It's completely up to the maintainers of the action repository, there's no version parsing involved. ⚠️

[DanielGSoftware]

Exactly what I was looking for, thank you very much!

[dirkf]

So what happens if you don't specify any @{version}? Eg

    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout

You might guess that if this is valid it's equivalent to the deprecated @{name_of_default_branch} but doc is silent as to whether it's valid and what it means if so.