How to skip Chromatic UI tests but still publish Storybook builds in GitHub Actions?

[RanitManik]

Summary

I’m trying to deploy Storybook via GitHub Actions using Chromatic, but I want to skip UI tests (visual regression tests) while still publishing the build. Current attempts using exitOnceUploaded: true or skip: true either don’t work or prevent publishing entirely. I keep seeing:

“UI Tests Pending – Update your plan to resume testing.”

Additional information

GitHub Actions workflow snippet:

- name: Publish to Chromatic
        # UPDATE: Changed from @v1 to @v11 to support the 'onlyStories' flag
        uses: chromaui/action@v13
        with:
          # Use GITHUB_TOKEN for tighter integration
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          # Your project's unique token, stored as a secret
          projectToken: ${{ secrets.CHROMATIC_PROJECT_TOKEN }}
          # Explicitly tell Chromatic where the built Storybook is located
          storybookBuildDir: ui/storybook-static
          # Don't fail the CI job if visual changes are detected
          exitZeroOnChanges: true
          # Exit the process once upload is complete
          exitOnceUploaded: true
        # Don't block deployment if Chromatic fails for any reason
        continue-on-error: true

Create a reproduction

No response

[dosubot[bot]]

Hi @RanitManik! I'm Dosu and I’m helping the storybook team.

There isn’t a documented way to skip Chromatic UI tests while still publishing Storybook builds. The flags like exitOnceUploaded and skip don’t bypass the visual regression step—they either stop the process early or prevent publishing entirely, which leads to the “UI Tests Pending” message you’re seeing. Chromatic’s workflow is designed to always run visual tests when publishing builds, and there’s no supported flag to disable this behavior in the current integration (docs).

If you only need static hosting for Storybook and don’t want visual testing, consider using a different service (like GitHub Pages, Vercel, or Netlify) to publish your build. If you must use Chromatic, you can make the tests non-blocking with continue-on-error: true, but the build will still show as pending until tests run or are accepted.

For a feature request or workaround, you may want to reach out to Chromatic support directly, as this limitation is on their side—not Storybook’s.

To reply, just mention @dosu.

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[JReinhold]

hi!

This is actually a setting in Chromatic. If you navigate to your project's settings in chromatic.com via the Manage button in the left sidebar, you'll see there are buttons to disable UI Review and UI Tests. You should be able to just disable those two and run a new build, and it should just publish your Storybook without running any tests.

[RanitManik]

Thank you so much! This worked perfectly.