Schedule workflow trigger to run on non-default branch

[tbell83]

Is there a way to use the on.schedule workflow trigger to run against a branch other than the default branch?

I know that I can use the checkout action to check out whichever branch I need, but the problem I am running into is that the subject being passed to the OIDC provider in AWS is always the default branch.

[ossanna16]

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[pmonks]

Any updates on this? I too have this issue and have found the workarounds to be unsatisfactory.

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[pmonks]

This issue still isn't addressed.

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[pmonks]

This issue still isn't addressed.

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[pmonks]

This issue still isn't addressed.

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[pmonks]

This issue still isn't addressed.

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[pmonks]

This issue still isn't addressed.

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[pmonks]

This issue still isn't addressed.

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[pmonks]

This issue still isn't addressed.

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[pmonks]

This issue still isn't addressed.

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[pmonks]

This issue still isn't addressed.

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[pmonks]

This issue still isn't addressed.

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[pmonks]

This issue still isn't addressed.

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[mert-batu]

[pmonks]

I don't believe Option 1 works if you want the scheduled job to run independently on multiple branches, and as you say the other options involve additional work outside of GitHub.

The real solution is for GitHub to focus on improving the actions mechanism to support this (and many other things it's currently poor at doing), instead of wasting their time on "AI" garbage.

[shanshantanusingh113-max]

.github/workflows/scheduler.yml (on default branch)

name: Scheduled Trigger
on:
schedule:
- cron: "0 5 * * *"

jobs:
trigger:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Trigger workflow on target branch
env:
GH_TOKEN: ${{ github.token }}
run: |
gh workflow run actual-workflow.yml
--ref my-target-branch
--repo ${{ github.repository }}

.github/workflows/actual-workflow.yml (on target branch)

name: Actual Workflow
on:
workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
run:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
permissions:
id-token: write
contents: read
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Configure AWS credentials
uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v4
with:
role-to-assume: arn:aws:iam::123456789:role/my-role
aws-region: us-east-1

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[pmonks]

This issue still isn't addressed.

[techlinn]

Nobody's mentioned this yet but GitHub added OIDC subject claim customization back in early 2023 and it's exactly what solves this. on.schedule always fires from the default branch, so the sub field in the OIDC token always has your default branch's ref baked in. But you can tell GitHub to drop ref from the subject claim entirely. Once you do that, your AWS trust policy doesn't care which branch triggered the run, and the scheduled workflow just works.

Repo level:

PUT /repos/{owner}/{repo}/actions/oidc/customization/sub
{
  "use_default": false,
  "include_claim_keys": ["repo", "context", "actor"]
}

Org level if you want it everywhere:

PUT /orgs/{org}/actions/oidc/customization/sub
{
  "include_claim_keys": ["repo", "context", "actor"]
}

Drop ref from the claim keys, then update your AWS trust policy to match the new subject format. It'll look something like repo:owner/repo:environment:prod depending on what claims you kept. The scheduled workflow still runs from the default branch under the hood, but since the branch ref isn't in the subject anymore, the role assumption goes through fine.

There's also a CLI extension for this if you'd rather not hand craft the API calls: https://github.com/tspascoal/gh-oidc-sub

The workflow_dispatch workaround @shanshantanusingh113-max mentioned still works if you need the code to actually run on a specific branch. But if the problem is purely the OIDC mismatch, customizing the claim is a lot less moving parts.

Hope this answers your question!

[pmonks]

Or GitHub could make on.<branch> work as expected in scheduled actions, instead of being silently ignored.

[techlinn]

Completely valid. The feature request has been open since 2022 and GitHub has never officially responded to it. Their 2026 schedule roadmap covers reliability fixes and timezone support but branch filtering isn't mentioned anywhere. So yeah, workaround it is for the foreseeable future.

[pmonks]

Workaround and continued pressure on GitHub to properly address this issue.

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