Option to mark reusable workflows as templates to not show them under the "Actions" tab

[aramfe]

We use several templates for our workflows in form of reusable workflows, that we never call for themselves, but only call as reusable workflows.

There should be an option to mark/hide workflow files as reusable workflows, to not show them under "All Workflows" as it is the case right now.

[ethomson]

Yes, I agree that this would be a useful improvement. Thanks for the feedback.

[pbarhyl]

Any update? We have empty workflows what only distracting us from main content.

[ssbarnea]

I think that this could be implemented by adding an implicit filter to "All workflows", and that would not only allow us to hide these but also control which actions we want to not be listed in the default views.

IMHO, that approach is more flexible and allows full control for the user to hide/show actions that are relevant to most users.

The current situation is that other workflows, liked ones that run on any issue edit, including label changes are cluttering the UI. Example https://github.com/ansible/vscode-ansible/actions

[v4hn]

665 question upwards and going. Pretty please?

I have a rather weird situation right now that hints at something going wrong behind the scenes.
There are four workflows in the repository and two of them are exclusively reusable workflows.
For some reason one of these two reusable workflows shows up, but the other does not.

I would expect that the UI does not show any workflow that only specifies the on: workflow_call trigger, as nothing useful can be done with them in the UI.

[ChromeQ]

665 question upwards and going. Pretty please?

I have a rather weird situation right now that hints at something going wrong behind the scenes. There are four workflows in the repository and two of them are exclusively reusable workflows. For some reason one of these two reusable workflows shows up, but the other does not.

I would expect that the UI does not show any workflow that only specifies the on: workflow_call trigger, as nothing useful can be done with them in the UI.

I disagree that there is nothing useful from workflows without the on: workflow_call. I often want or need to look at the logs for automated actions triggered from PR merges or failures from a test run which was triggered from a commit or newly opened PR.
Manually triggering a workflow is not the only "useful" situation to be able to see.

[v4hn]

I disagree that there is nothing useful from workflows without the on: workflow_call.

That is not what I wrote. If a workflow only specifies the on: workflow_call trigger and no other trigger, it can only be invoked through other workflows and will never list any runs (and thus no logs) for itself on the website. Thus it's entirely useless to have a website that lists all runs of this workflow with the option to sort/filter/search through them.

I often want or need to look at the logs for automated actions triggered from PR merges or failures from a test run which was triggered from a commit or newly opened PR.

Everyone does.

[bnlf]

+1 to this. The UI for Actions is already bad enough and not able to hide reusable workflows is very annoying.

[Sxnan]

+1 to this. Having the reused-only workflow in the tab is distracting.

[samwisekind]

I'd be super keen for this too! I tried burying the reused workflows at the bottom of the list but unfortunately doesn't seem easily possible due to the way the list is sorted. Maybe it should hide the workflow if it only has on.workflow_call?

[razdrom]

+1

[LPauzies]

+1 to this !

[cbarbosa2]

+1

[matiza5]

+1

[muzahm01]

+1

[Vana12330]

Ми використовуємо кілька шаблонів для наших робочих процесів у формі багаторазових робочих процесів, які ми ніколи не називаємо самі по собі, а лише називаємо багаторазовими робочими процесами.

Має бути можливість позначати/приховувати файли робочих процесів як робочі процеси для багаторазового використання, щоб не відображати їх у розділі «Усі робочі процеси», як це відбувається зараз.

[pbarhyl]

+1

[flaxel]

Please use this GitHub feature to show that the feature is important, but please don't write +1 every time.

[prashantkumar-tomtom]

+1

[martindevnow]

+1

[prein]

It could be a generic hide/show switch, rather than logic checking if the workflow is reusable without other triggers. More flexible and less error prone.
Consider for example

name: foo
show_in_ui: false
on:
  workflow_call:
    inputs:
    ...

[eadmundo]

I 100% agree this would be a great feature, but in the meantime the way we work around it is to create actions in the same repo and use those instead of reusable workflows: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/learn-github-actions/finding-and-customizing-actions#adding-an-action-from-the-same-repository

[ranma2913]

Yeah, or consolidate reusable workflows into a 2nd repository dedicated to the content.

[Sojaner]

I have noticed that the team has solved this issue in another way and think that's also smart.
Since a little while ago, I've been able to pin the workflows that I want, to the top of the list of the workflows.
I like this approach since we don't need to change the workflows and it's quite fast to pin/unpin the workflows.

[ranma2913]

Great point! This 'partially helps' but in my monorepo I still have MORE good/valid jobs than i can pin:

Expanded & Pinned:

Default View:

[Sojaner]

That's a valid point @ranma2913!

[biradrags]

does it work for Enterprise version? I don't see any Pin buttons

[slnc]

Great point! This 'partially helps' but in my monorepo I still have MORE good/valid jobs than i can pin:

Expanded & Pinned:

Default View:

Functional but ugly: name your reusable workflows z_reusable_foo so that they show at the bottom and it's clear they're not top-level actions.

[ranma2913]

Allow 10 pinned workflows so I can FULLY customize the display list of action workflows:

[h2oearth]

That seems like a bandit :-(. We want to be able to hide the unwanted workflows from the list.

[qoomon]

I think the best way to solve this ui issue is to simply hide workflows that only have the workflow_call trigger configured.

[ChromeQ]

I'm not sure this is a great solution, I have quite a few actions based on PR open or merge which are really important to keep an eye on as these are the ones destined to make it to production, and these workflows purposefully do not allow me to trigger them manually with workflow_call because I want to enforce the proper PR process. But I can see how many devs are using it in other ways where a simple rule like that won't make it better for them.

[qoomon]

I don't get your point. If the workflow has other triggers than only workflow_call it should show up.

[qoomon]

If a workflow only has the workflow_call trigger, there is no benefit in show this workflow in the list

[BroFromSpace]

+1 to this

[iserratos]

+1

[ChromeQ]

@iserratos @BroFromSpace - don't be "+1" guys, let's be better
https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/12025#discussioncomment-3978445
https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/12025#discussioncomment-8933320

[AntonZiminSaritasa]

Add a "🔒 " prefix to workflow names - they will be moved to the bottom.

[jerzy-howis]

+1

[IdoOzeri]

+1

[SivkovSavely]

please... just please
+1

it's not funny anymore. it's not like this is a hard fix. you could at least communicate to us that it's been put into the backlog, 2 and a half years for a pretty requested feature.

[nebuk89]

Hello! Sorry for being quiet on this one! The feedback is heard loud and clear 🙏

I will probably end up combining this with the other open request to add folder support to the left navigation of workflows to just 're-design' this space.

I am also glad that some of y'all found the pinning of workflows :) this was very much us doing the quickest thing we could to try to ease some pain here. I am going to see if we can do a quick ship on adding search in the sidebar as well some time early next year, but overall I get this bit of navigation needs some love.

Thank you for all the feedback and please keep engaging/sharing 🫶

[rcdailey]

If you feel combining this with another issue is the right path forward, then I will support you in that decision. I would only add that I worry that means this will take longer to deliver. Folks waiting on this may not necessarily care too much about folders.

[v4hn]

I am also glad that some of y'all found the pinning of workflows :) this was very much us doing the quickest thing we could to try to ease some pain here.

Thank you for that. It's definitely useful. As a note, pinning is not supported in the GitHub app. Personally, I often check workflows on the run, so the problem persists there.

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[Dev-Paulo-Henrique]

can accept? #2

[steven-pribilinskiy]

In the meantime, we found ⚙️ to be useful to move all workflow_dispatch workflows to the top.
That, combined with pinning, gave us at least two levels of grouping, without having to put lengthy or cryptic prefixes, since the sidebar is limited in width.

I wish other emojis are sorted too 🤷‍♂️.

Looking forward for https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/12025#discussioncomment-10877548 🚀🚀🚀🚀

to add folder support to the left navigation of workflows

[SivkovSavely]

lmao why are they not sorted