Expression syntax for not startswith

[phw]

I have some trouble figuring out the syntax of Github Action expressions, and the documentation is not very clear on this. I know I can run a step only for tagged commits with

if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/')

How do I inverse this, so it is only run if it is not a tag? The docs for expressions say ! is the not operator, but something like ! startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/') or !startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/') gives a syntax error.

[jherico]

have you tried 

if: startsWith(github.ref, ‘refs/tags/’) != true

or

if: !(startsWith(github.ref, ‘refs/tags/’))

[phw]

Thanks a lot, this worked:

if: startsWith(github.ref, ‘refs/tags/’) != true

The other variant with !(…) I had already tried, it gives a syntax error.

[Yanjingzhu]

If you want to use ! in front of startsWith, you can put whole if condition inside double quotes:

if: "!startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/')"

[jeking3]

It would be useful for GitHub to add an example.  I had a hard time finding this.

[mloskot]

Another one:

if: ${{ ! startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/') }}

see detailed explanation in If (not) startswith mutually exclusive steps #26386.