[Bug] Reusable workflow for pull requests giving parse error

[tarunwadhwa13]

Reusable workflows when triggered are failing with this parse error

The workflow is not valid. [my-org]/[my-repo]/.github/workflows/reusable_workflow.yml@[git-sha]: Expected document start parse event Unexpected type '' encountered while reading 'root'. The type 'MappingToken' was expected.

This issue is generally observed for pull_request based triggers.

Any help in this is seriously appreciated. We have been struggling to update our workflows because of this

[Puneeth-n]

@tarunwadhwa13 may be something for actions/runner?

[dannyskoog]

I have experienced the same issue when I've used a relative path for calling my reusable workflow (i.e. ./.github/workflows/reusable_workflow.yml in combination with the pull_request_review event. And the bug is most likely related to that the pull_request event uses a simulated merge commit as ref (https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-workflows/events-that-trigger-workflows#pull_request_review). And as an example of that it works perfectly fine using a relative path in combination with the issue_comment event (which uses the HEAD commit from the default branch as ref).

For now I've gone with:
[my-org]/[my-repo]/.github/workflows/reusable_workflow.yml@main

[gadgadskiy]

unfortunately, the error reproduces sometimes with this fix as well

[dylanrandle]

I am also facing this problem. Is there any timeline for a fix?

[dylanrandle]

Others are facing this problem as well: https://github.community/t/ref-head-in-reusable-workflows/203690/64

[AivarasGluodas]

We are also facing this problem. Is input available from GitHub team?

[ViacheslavKudinov]

Same problem with pull_request ,
but is fine with push.

[mopsek]

😄

[shashanklmurthy]

I have this problem on push but my pull_request event is fine :/

[umid-podo]

I am also facing this problem.

[ethomson]

Hi everyone - thanks for reporting this, the engineering team is investigating.

[dianjuar]

Here you have an example with the error in case you need it
https://github.com/bikecoders/ngx-deploy-npm/actions/runs/1800250922

The simplified YML is

name: PR's
on:
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]

jobs:
  pr-test:
    uses: ./.github/workflows/basic-test.yml

[tomgrossman]

@ethomson any update?

[constgen]

Have just decided to try reusable workflows for the first time in my life and they are unfortunately broken. Is it a regression or they never worked for PRs? Hope there will be automated tests to track the regression of this issue again whet it will be fixed.

[ralucaelenavasiliu]

We are facing the same issue on our pipelines on pull_request

[ajaykn]

Hi all, apologies for the inconvenience caused. We have rolled out the fix now.

We starting seeing this issue when workflows started referencing reusable workflows locally and this issue was coming for pull_request events.

Thanks for the patience and please let us know if you still face issues.

[alexbatashev]

@ajaykn FWIW, it seems, that local reusable workflows can't be cancelled. The 'cancel' button just has no effect, all jobs are executed till very end. Works fine if I use workflow by referencing it from main branch.

[niall-shaw]

@ajaykn - I am still experiencing this issue today.

Relevant part of continuous integration workflow file:

name: Continuous Integration

on:
  pull_request_review:
    types: [submitted]
  push:

concurrency:
  group: build

jobs:
  validate_test:
    name: Validate & Test
    uses: ./.github/workflows/validate-test.yml

  build_uat:
    if: ( github.event_name == 'pull_request_review' && github.event.review.state == 'approved' ) || github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    needs: validate_test
    name: Build UAT
    uses: ./.github/workflows/build.yml

Error:

[Invalid workflow file: .github/workflows/continuous-integration.yml#L14](...)
error parsing called workflow "./.github/workflows/validate-test.yml": workflow was not found.

[niall-shaw]

@ajaykn - can you follow up on this please

[ajaykn]

@niall-shaw Apologies for inconvenience.
local reference of workflow was supported before for Pull request event only
And we have released a fix to support for pull_request_review and pull_request_review_comment.

Can you please check once again and see if you are still facing the issue.
cc @yujincat

[kemalizing]

hi @ajaykn I have the same issue now with local reference. I want to deploy when we get an approval for the PR on staging environment. I also want to use the local workflow to see the real impact but getting the same error "Invalid workflow file...". Could you please help me?

[dannyskoog]

Invalid workflow file: .github/workflows/dev.yaml#L14
error parsing called workflow "./.github/workflows/create-image-and-release-to-env.yaml@": workflow was not found. See https://docs.github.com/actions/learn-github-actions/reusing-workflows#access-to-reusable-workflows for more information.

I get the above error when trying to run a reusable workflow (using a relative path) triggered by the pull_request_review event.

Here's the relevant parts of the initiating workflow file (dev.yaml):

name: Dev release
on:
  pull_request_review:
    types: [submitted, edited]
  issue_comment:
    types: [created, edited]

jobs:
  release:
    name: Create and release image
    uses: ./.github/workflows/create-image-and-release-to-env.yaml

Important to know is that there's no error when the reusable workflow is ran triggered by the issue_comment event (although I'm aware that issue_comment events have a ref of the default branch. But it doesn't change my point).

I have verified that the reusable workflow file is part of the PR branch that the event got triggered for, which should be enough since according to the docs pull_request_review events should have a ref of refs/pull/:prNumber/merge (https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-workflows/events-that-trigger-workflows#pull_request_review).

Could you please look into this @ajaykn? Thanks!

Update: I opened a separate ticket for this #14306

[ajaykn]

@dannyskoog Apologies for inconvenience.
local reference of workflow was supported before for Pull request event only
And we have released a fix to support for pull_request_review and pull_request_review_comment.

Can you please check once again and see if you are still facing the issue.

[christohbiorad]

I'm getting an error where it is requesting "required key: runs-on" for jobs that are calling re-usable workflows.

[DomVinyard]

I'm getting similar Missing required key 'steps'

[djthornton1212]

I receive:

error parsing called workflow "./.github/workflows/identify-apps.yml": workflow was not found. See https://docs.github.com/actions/learn-github-actions/reusing-workflows#access-to-reusable-workflows for more information.

when running a local reusable workflow w/ pull_request_review_comment as the event.

---
name: PR Notifications

on:
  pull_request: 
    types:
      - opened
      - reopened
      - edited
      - synchronize
    branches:
      - main
  pull_request_review_comment:
    types:
      - created
      - edited

jobs:
  identity:
    uses: ./.github/workflows/identify-apps.yml

**Note that this works just fine on a pull_request event.

[djthornton1212]

Response from GitHub Support:

Thank you for writing to GitHub Enterprise Support.

Apologies for the trouble here.

I am able to reproduce this. I have opened an issue for Engineering to investigate further. I'll let you know as soon as I have an update from them.

As a workaround at the moment, you could refer to the reusable workflow with the {owner}/{repo}/.github/workflows/{filename}@{ref} syntax to unblock you.

I can confirm that this workaround did indeed work for me.

[ajaykn]

@djthornton1212 Apologies for inconvenience.
local reference of workflow was supported before for Pull request event only
And we have released a fix to support for pull_request_review and pull_request_review_comment.

Can you please check once again and see if you are still facing the issue.

[djthornton1212]

@ajaykn Adding it to my todo list.

[gbetous-swir]

Same issue again.

It happens only when using the "local" syntax uses: ./.github/workflows/xxx.yml

[mortenkjelling]

Had a brief hickup today with the same issue here as well.
Some workflow runs failed with

Invalid workflow file: .github/workflows/ci.yml#L63
                      
error parsing called workflow "./.github/workflows/build-standard-app.yml": error in fetching the workflow file

I closed the PR and opened a new from the same branch, it worked.

We run it with:

on:
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize]

[jim5252]

This is also happening again to us again on a push to the main branch:

name: Terraform CI
on:
  pull_request:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  terraform:
    name: "Terraform"
    uses: ./.github/workflows/template-terraform.yml

error parsing called workflow "./.github/workflows/template-terraform.yml": error in fetching the workflow file

[vladimir-carpa]

We are issuing the same problem right now

on:
  push:
    branches: ["master"]
    tags: ["v*"]
  pull_request:
    branches: ["master"]
    
deploy:
  needs: ["test", "build", "check_deploy"]
  if: "${{ github.ref == 'refs/heads/master' || startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/') }}"
  uses: "{organization}/{repo}/.github/workflows/cd.yml@master"
  with:
    stage: "guess_from_github_ref"

[ThomasMarcelo]

I've been getting the error parsing called workflow repeatedly for 2 days now. It comes and goes.
I'm referencing a local workflow (private repo) with the uses: ./.github/workflows/myresusable.yml reference.

Is this a known bug? And it is random as well... Retriggering the workflow run sometimes fixes it.

Using the public way of referencing the workflow does not work for me because I need to use the workflow from the commit, not a fixed branch or SHA. The use parameter doesn't seem to accept variables, making it impossible to do what I need.

[lascufa]

Hi there!

We experience this issue also since about 2 days now. Something must have changed regarding reusable workflows.
error parsing called workflow "xyz.yml": error in fetching the workflow file

When the main workflow uses reusable workflows, we receive the error message randomly for some workflow runs (and in it randomly for some reusable workflow linkages).

[djthornton1212]

Hello Community,

For those who have been experiencing this issue the last two days, here's the reply I received from GitHub Enterprise Support:

Thank you for contacting GitHub Enterprise Support.

It appears this was due to an internal issue with Actions Checkout. We have since resolved the Checkout issue and I can see that a few other users confirmed this is working for them again per https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/40839. Can you confirm you are no longer experiencing this issue?

Best regards,

[ThomasMarcelo]

I couldn't find anyone saying it is working again for them there... 🤷🏽‍♂️

[djthornton1212]

Follow up response from GitHub Support:

This issue should now be mitigated. You may have seen this issue occur again this morning while we were still investigating. This looks to have been due to a secondary rate limit being hit. We have patched this and have resolved the issue, we can see the API endpoint is healthy at this point. Is this functioning as intended at this time?

[djthornton1212]

Yeah, I can't say that I'm still seeing the issue. My developers appear to be functioning normal since 10a CT yesterday.

[gbetous-swir]

And now :

Invalid workflow file: .github/workflows/main.yml#L43
error parsing called workflow "xxx/yyy/.github/workflows/letp.yml@master": error in fetching the workflow file

[gadgadskiy]

Hi guys! I have a similar error on the pull request opened event.
My reusable workflow:

name: Composite Actions Flow
on:
  workflow_call:
    secrets:
      token:
        required: true

jobs:
  add-comment:
    if: ${{github.event.action == 'opened' && github.base_ref == 'develop'}}
    runs-on: self-hosted
    name: Add initial comment
    steps:
      - uses: actions/github-script@v6
        env:
          . . . . . . .
        with:
          script: |
            . . . . . . .

And integration in the repository:

name: Action integration

on:
  pull_request:
    types: [ opened ]
    branches:
      - develop

jobs:
  action-integration:
    name: Open PR event Event
    uses: [my_org]/[repo_with_workflows]/.github/workflows/reusable-workflow.yaml@master
    secrets:
      token: ${{ . . . }}

In most cases, it runs successfully, but from time to time, it fails with an error:

[Invalid workflow file: .github/workflows/my-action-integration.yml#L12](https://github.com/[my_org]/[repo_with_integration]/actions/runs/3622295031/workflow)
error parsing called workflow "[my_org]/[repo_with_workflows]/.github/workflows/reusable-workflow.yaml@master": error in fetching the workflow file

It fails in 1 case in 10 that's pretty annoying for users. I can't see ways to add retries on our side, so I'm asking for help to look at these errors from your side.

[mmospanenko]

Got the same issue with on workflow_call, but why it should be related to event/trigger - it is static analysis issue.

[eneskilinch]

actual response:
{ "configs": [ "dispatch" ], "versions": [] }

parsing response error in actions:
Error: google-github-actions/deploy-appengine failed with: failed to parse deploy response: missing or empty "versions", stdout: ***

[spicybackend]

Turns out this is a regression in the deploy-appengine action in regards to cron job deployments @eneskilinch. You can workaround this for now by specifying the last good version, v1.0.0.

      - id: 'deploy-cron-config'
        uses: 'google-github-actions/[email protected]'
        with:
          deliverables: cron.yaml

[dovy]

This issue also occurs if the dispatch has no change than that which was already deployed. FYI.

[amelielowe]

I have the same problem. I tried also to make a step to checkout the repo so it will be able to find the files. But seems not to be working.

[kemalizing]

This issue is not resolved! At least not resolved for pull_request_review triggers. Please fix it

[fermentfan]

Same error here with workflow_call!

[shashanklmurthy]

I have the same error on push events whereas the pull_request event seems fine for me!