Block rerunning old workflow runs

[Tenzer]

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We are using GitHub Actions for deploying updates. The deploy workflow is configured with:

concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}

This makes sure there's only ever one active deploy workflow run at a time.

We do occasionally have deploys that fail due to transient issues, which can lead to situations like I've tried to illustrate here:

sequenceDiagram
    actor User
    participant GitHub
    participant Slack

    User->>GitHub: Merges change A<br>Deploy workflow triggered
    GitHub->>Slack: Deploy workflow fails, notification sent

    User->>GitHub: Merges change B<br>Deploy workflow triggered
    User-->>Slack: User notices notification about failed deploy
    User->>GitHub: Schedules retry of deploy for change A,<br>It is added to the queue

    Note over GitHub: Deploy for change B succeeds
    Note over GitHub: Workflow for change A is run again, deploying an old commit

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Is there a way to mark a workflow run as not allowed to be retried in case a later workflow run exists for the same workflow and branch?

I can't see any options in the workflow syntax around this, so I guess an action potentially would need to be made to check this as the very first step in the workflow?

[TheDCode]

Hey there, did you find a solution for this? I'm looking for the same.

[Tenzer]

No, I never found a solution for it.

Looking at it again, I guess it might be possible to make an action that calls GitHub's API to try and work out if a more recent workflow run has happened and stop execution. It's just an idea though.

[kuteninja]

This is also an issue for me. I'm using Git with Terraform and running an old action could cause the deletion of a lot of things even if done by mistake.

I'm looking for workarounds within the pipeline, but it would be nice if we could mark actions as "stale" or disabled from running when a new commit pops up, or after some time.

[kuteninja]

As a workaround we implemented a lambda function which deletes all workflow runs older than a day for the branches that I wanted (master). You could also modify it clear workflows every hour and/or to delete all but the last one, it's not ideal but seems to do the trick for us.

from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone
from github import Repository, GithubException
import logging

logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)


def clear_old_actions(repo: Repository, days: int = 2):
    try:
        cutoff_date = datetime.now(timezone.utc) - timedelta(days=days)
        workflows = repo.get_workflows()
        deleted_count = 0

        for workflow in workflows:
            runs = workflow.get_runs()
            for run in runs:
                if run.created_at < cutoff_date:
                    try:
                        run.delete()
                        deleted_count += 1
                        logger.info(f"Deleted workflow run {run.id} from {run.created_at} in repo {repo.name}")
                    except GithubException as e:
                        logger.warning(f"Failed to delete run {run.id}: {e}")

        logger.info(f"Deleted {deleted_count} workflow runs older than {days} days from {repo.name}")
        return {
            "status": "OK",
            "deleted_count": deleted_count,
            "cutoff_date": cutoff_date.isoformat(),
            "days_kept": days,
        }
    except Exception as e:
        logger.error(f"Error clearing old actions in repo {repo.name}: {e}")
        return {"status": "ERROR", "error": str(e)}

# call this function from the lambda handler or some other
# action you have, it expects a Repository object from Github

As a more robust solution Github could offer to automatically mark workflows older than X time to be stale so they can't be run again, or to delete them automatically as we do here.

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[Dare-marvel]

I think you should try disabling the workflow run

[Tenzer]

I can't see there's a functionality to disable a workflow run anywhere. I can only see the ability to disable a workflow entirely, but that wouldn't be very helpful here.

Having looked a bit more into this today, I think it should be relatively simple to call the List workflow runs for a workflow API endpoint to check if the most recent workflow run ID is greater than the current workflow run ID, as the ID doesn't seem to change when a workflow run is retried, so it would be a smaller number than for any subsequent workflow runs.

I'll see if I can make an action that can check this and return a failed status in case this condition is detected, but I can't promise anything as my time for this may be limited.

[AdmirMuric]

Hej @Tenzer did you happen to make an action for this? I am currently in the same shoe and am considering going the same route as you, by simply listing workflow runs and checking run ID is greater than current workflow run ID.

[Tenzer]

No, my need hasn't been big enough that I took the time to make an action for it.

[Tenzer]

I spent a bit of time on it and have created an action that I think does what it needs: https://github.com/marketplace/actions/block-old-workflow-rerun.

I've done some testing myself, but please test it out and see if it works like you would want it to, and let me know if you spot any issues or need anything it doesn't do right now.