Pull request tests run twice?

[d-maurer]

I have the impression that the tests after a PR push are run twice, once with label (push) and once with label (pull_request). If this impression is correct, what is the motivation?

If there is no strong reason, we should avoid test duplication, as this would reduce testing time.

[dataflake]

The impression is correct, the GitHub Actions for those tests are triggered on both pushes and pull request pushes.

I think it's set up that way to avoid situations where no tests are run at all, like someone creates a PR from a fork. In that case the forked branch (and tests that may or may not run on it, depending on the forking side's setup) is not readily visible to a reviewer.

A quick glance at the GH Actions docs didn't show an obvious way to say "if two triggers want to execute the tests just skip one of them".

[dataflake]

I found an article that describes how to write a condition that basically says "run on push and run on PR if the PR is from a forked repository", see https://wildwolf.name/github-actions-how-to-avoid-running-the-same-workflow-multiple-times/:

on:
  push:
    branches:
    - '**'
  pull_request:
    branches:
    - '**'
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: github.event_name != "pull_request" || github.event.pull_request.head.repo.full_name == github.event.pull_request.base.repo.full_name

[mauritsvanrees]

I have lately done it like this:

on:
  push:
    branches: [ master ]
  pull_request:
  workflow_dispatch:

In the branches you would list master or main plus any maintenance branches.

[dataflake]

Think about pushes against maintenance branches other than main/master. You would probably have to maintain a list of active branch names there that differ from repository to repository.

[mauritsvanrees]

That is true. For an individual package this would be fine, but here in meta not.

[mauritsvanrees]

I am trying this in the zc.buildout repository. It failed at first because I copied an older version of the condition from above, which made the workflow invalid. So let me paste the current version from meta so others can copy the correct line:

if: github.event_name != 'pull_request' || github.event.pull_request.head.repo.full_name != github.event.pull_request.base.repo.full_name

Note that you need single quotes. Thanks @mgedmin.

[marcelm]

And a drive-by comment to those struggling with this: The corrected version by @mauritsvanrees fixes two typos compared to the original: There need to be single quotes and it should be a test for inequality (!=).

[ingydotnet]

Easier to read formatting for YAML posted by @mauritsvanrees:

if: github.event_name != 'pull_request' ||
  github.event.pull_request.head.repo.full_name !=
  github.event.pull_request.base.repo.full_name