How can I provide a link to a workflow which supports workflow_dispatch with a branch pre-selected?

[justinmchase]

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When someone creates a PR I would like to create a status badge to the Deploy workflow for the repository. Right now I can display the status of the deploy workflow for the branch of the PR in the badge but I cannot seem to figure out how to initiate the deployment by simply clicking the badge.

At the very least I'd like to land them on a page which allows them to press the Run workflow button with their branch pre-populated.

My team has dozens of branches (near 100 sometimes) and a lot of them have similar names and trying to pick the right branch every single time you deploy is kind of frustrating. It would be very nice to have a way to do a deployment from a Branch or PR rather than go to the workflow then pick the branch.

[the-officialjosh]

To create a status badge that allows for initiating the deployment directly by clicking the badge, you would need to customize the badge URL and link it to a specific action. Unfortunately, GitHub badges themselves don't have built-in functionality to trigger deployments or directly run workflows.

However, you can achieve a similar outcome by creating a custom badge that links to a specific page where users can initiate the deployment. This is how ever the approach my team uses although we got the idea from GPT

1. Create a custom badge using an image generation service or a static image file.
2. Set the badge's URL to a specific page in your application or repository.
3. On that page, include a "Run workflow" button or a form that allows users to select their branch or PR.
4. Use appropriate backend or JavaScript logic to pre-populate the branch or PR information in the workflow run action.

By customizing the badge's URL and creating a dedicated deployment page, you can provide a convenient way for users to initiate the deployment with their branch or PR pre-populated.

Note that implementing this functionality would require custom coding and integration within your application or repository.

[justinmchase]

By "page" do you mean you're serving it up through the github static pages? And its just some simple html?

Also, from this I'm inferring that github actions UI itself doesn't support query parameters or anything to pre-populate workflow dispatch parameters?

[the-officialjosh]

Oh I get what you mean now and I don't think I have another idea on how to resolve this. 😔

[justinmchase]

Well its an interesting idea, I think it would work. It seems like it could be a feature right in the github UI but its useful to have some workaround ideas.

[the-officialjosh]

Well if you can try it give me feedback so I can learn how it was done. As I needed to read up on that asI haven't encountered it myself. And if you could I will love to be marked as the answer when you try it 😎

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