pull requests triggered from actions don't trigger other actions

[OmarTawfik]

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I have the following workflow that is triggered on all pull requests, and all pushes except to main branch:

on:
  workflow_dispatch: {}
  pull_request: {}
  push:
    branches-ignore:
      - "main"

It runs correctly when I push a branch from my laptop, or when a PR is created from a user fork.

Some actions can also push new branches (to the same repository) and create PRs for them:

• Bump Slang Version NomicFoundation/slang#492
• update lock files after release NomicFoundation/slang#493

However, these PRs don't trigger that workflow. I have to close and re-open the PR in order for the workflow to be triggered correctly.

I wonder if this is a bug, or if there is a way I can debug why are they not triggered when the PR is opened for the first time.

[airtower-luna]

Do you use the GITHUB_TOKEN for those actions? In that case it'll never trigger a workflow run:

When you use the repository's GITHUB_TOKEN to perform tasks, events triggered by the GITHUB_TOKEN, with the exception of workflow_dispatch and repository_dispatch, will not create a new workflow run.

If you want to run workflows from those events, you'll need to provide a PAT.

[OmarTawfik]

Thank you! I missed that part of the docs.

If you want to run workflows from those events, you'll need to provide a PAT.

Wouldn't it be possible to use the same GITHUB_TOKEN to send workflow_dispatch to start the workflow? For example:

gh workflow run "check.yml" --ref "my-branch"

[airtower-luna]

That should be possible, yes. Unless you need the workflow run to provide checks for the PR, AFAIK a workflow_dispatch run won't count for that.

[OmarTawfik]

Seems like I also need to manually create/update the check run after I dispatch the workflow. Thanks!