Explore Events

Events are implemented by the on clause in a workflow definition.

There are several types of events that can trigger workflows.

Scheduled events

With this type of trigger, a cron schedule needs to be provided.

on:
    schedule:

        - cron: '0 8-17 * * 1-5'

Cron schedules are based on five values:

Minute (0 - 59)
Hour (0 - 23)
Day of the month (1 - 31)
Month (1 - 12)
Day of the week (0 - 6)

Aliases for the months are JAN-DEC and for days of the week are SUN-SAT.

A wild card means any. (* is a special value in YAML, so the cron string will need to be quoted)

So, in the example above, the schedule would be 8 AM - 5 PM Monday to Friday.

Code events will trigger most actions. It occurs when an event of interest occurs in the repository.

on:
    pull_request

The above event would fire when a pull request occurs.

on:
    [push, pull_request]

The above event would fire when either a push or a pull request occurs.

on:
    pull_request:
        branches:

            - develop

The event shows how to be specific about the section of the code that is relevant.

In this case, it will fire when a pull request is made in the develop branch.

There's a unique event that is used to trigger workflow runs manually. You should use the workflow_dispatch event.

Your workflow must be in the default branch for the repository.

Workflows can be executed when a GitHub webhook is called.

on:
    gollum

This event would fire when someone updates (or first creates) a Wiki page.

Events can be on repository_dispatch. That allows events to fire from external systems.

For more information on events, see Events that trigger workflows.