Pull requests trigger duplicate checks for both [push] and [pull_request]

[rdmurphy]

Hello!

I’ve noticed some recent repos I’ve setup with GitHub Actions seem to be duplicating work on pull requests and running/logging the tests for both the push and pull_request actions. What’s weird though is I’ve scanned through a few other repos (that aren’t mine) that seem to be configured in a similar way that do not have this issue?

You can see an example of it here and in the following screenshot.

Screen Shot 2020-05-01 at 11.36.40 AM.png1514×1002 123 KB

Definitely possible I goofed my workflow config as well. 😅

[BrightRan]

@rdmurphy ,

This is a correct behavior, not an issue. In the Checks of a PR, it will list all the jobs from the workflows run on the push  event and the  pull_request  event based on the latest commit in the HEAD branch (source branch of the PR). Currently, we have no methods to only list the the jobs run on the pull_request  event.

Because you configure your “Node CI” workflow runs on both push and  pull_request , when you push commit the workflow will be triggered, and when the PR is Open , this workflow also will be triggered by the pull_request. So on the checks list of your PR, it will list two similar checks triggered by different events ( push and  pull_request ).

[BrightRan]

@rdmurphy ,

Is my previous helpful to your?

If you have any other question about this ticket, feel free to tell us.

[rdmurphy]

Ah — so maybe what I’m after is just [push]? That would continue logging the latest check of a push of that branch in the pull request? I think that’s all I truly care about, I currently have nothing special expected to happen on a pull.

[BrightRan]

@rdmurphy ,

To avoid the duplicate checks being generated on the same PR, you can try to just set pull_request event or push event for the workflow. Or set branches filter on them.

[rdmurphy]

Thank you for clarifying! This makes sense now. I’ll accept your original response as the answer — I think it summarizes it well.

[pkit]

@BrightRan just setting pull_request doesn't run checks on force push for the same pull request.
I.e. typical workflow of: pull request -> update code (--force) -> update code (--force) -> approve -> merge doesn't really work without running duplicate tests

[pkit]

Ok, I think I found the best solution:

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
      - release-*
  pull_request:

This one will trigger pull_request on any pull request change and also triggers on the final merge to main or release-* branches.
Release branches are usually used for back-ports.

[joffrey-bion]

That's almost right. But what I'm after is to trigger on push to any branch (even the non-main ones that I'm developing on), but also on pull requests that are potentially open by other people (from forks). How to do that without duplicating jobs?

[javiertuya]

I've been working on this today. My solution when both push and pull_request can trigger the workflow is to use this (large) expression to enable/disable the execution of each job:

if: (github.event_name != 'pull_request' && ! github.event.pull_request.head.repo.fork) || (github.event_name == 'pull_request' && (github.event.pull_request.head.repo.fork || github.actor == 'dependabot[bot]'))

The first condition in the OR expression avoids the duplicates (disables PRs coming from the repo), and the second one allows PRs when coming from forked projects or dependabot updates.

[joffrey-bion]

@javiertuya why the dependabot check? In my case my exact problem is about dependabot PRs, because they trigger both the push and the PR event. So I do want to trigger on dependabot pushes and fork PRs, but not dependabot PRs (to support force pushes)

[javiertuya]

@joffrey-bion The reason is that in my typical configuration of workflow triggers, I ignore push events for dependabot updates:

on:
  push:
    branches-ignore:
      - 'dependabot/**' #avoid duplicates: only run the PR, not the push
      - 'gh-pages' #github pages do not trigger all tests
    tags-ignore:
      - 'v*' #avoid rerun existing commit on release
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - 'main'
jobs:
  test:
    if: (github.event_name != 'pull_request' && ! github.event.pull_request.head.repo.fork) || (github.event_name == 'pull_request' && (github.event.pull_request.head.repo.fork || startsWith(github.head_ref, 'dependabot/')))

This trigger configuration removes the dependabot duplicates when an update is created. Works fine in my case. Is not exactly your scenario, but I hope helps you.

[shqear93]

It's an issue for me to create separate check for each event trigger, what I'm trying to achieve is a single status check that:

1. Triggers on PR creation (pull_request) -> it could pass/fail -> if pass they can directly merge the PR
2. RERUN and UPDATES the results of the same check on PR review (pull_request_review) -> it should not create another status check but simply rerun

If I set the job required for the pull request the developers will never be able to merge their PRs because of two duplicate checks! I still need both triggers and only one status check

I also tried concurrency but no luck

Current workflow:

name: Protected Topics Check

on:
  pull_request_review:
    types: [ submitted ]
    branches:
      - master
    paths:
      - 'clusters/*/kustomize/kafka-resources/users/*.yaml'
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - master
    paths:
      - 'clusters/*/kustomize/kafka-resources/users/*.yaml'

concurrency:
  group: protected-topics-${{ inputs.pr_number }}
  cancel-in-progress: true

jobs:
  protected-topics:
    # check kafka topics

@BrightRan can you please help how can we use multiple triggers for a single status check ?

[shqear93]

I had to create a workaround to resolve this issue since I need one check to allow developers to merge their PRs when a dynamic custom approvers do approve the PR (pull_request_review event ), so I created a custom github action to RERUN the given list of checks by their job names

https://github.com/marketplace/actions/rerun-checks

name: After Review Trigger

on:
  pull_request_review:
    types: [ submitted ]

jobs:
  afrer-review-trigger:
    name: After Review Trigger
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Rerun protected-topics and Kafka-config-validation checks
        uses: shqear93/rerun-checks@v1
        with:
          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          check-names: 'protected-topics, some-other-job-name'

[kmturley]

I think what's confusing is that you want to show the result of tests in your PR.

So you add the pull_request event, but that creates the duplicate run:

name: Test
on:
  push:
  pull_request:

Results in:

However if you remove pull_request event you still see the Test results in the PR, without duplicates:

name: Test
on:
  push:

Results in: