How to Use the Cancel Workflow Action in GitHub Actions

name: 'Usage of cancel-workflow-action GitHub Action'
on:
    push:
        branches:
            - main
jobs:
    deploy:
        runs-on: ubuntu-latest
        steps:
        - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        - name: Cancel Previous Runs
          uses: styfle/cancel-workflow-action

Cancel Workflow Action

⏹️ GitHub Action to cancel previous running workflows on push

What is Cancel Workflow Action?​

The Cancel Workflow Action is a GitHub Action that cancels any previous runs that are not completed for a given workflow. This includes runs with a status of queued or in_progress.

concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: ${{ github.ref != 'refs/heads/main' }}

Advanced: Canceling Other Workflows Using GitHub Actions​

In some cases, you may wish to avoid modifying all your workflows and instead create a new workflow that cancels your other workflows. This can be useful when you have a problem with workflows getting queued.

name: Cancel
on: [push]
jobs:
  cancel:
    name: 'Cancel Previous Runs'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    timeout-minutes: 3
    steps:
      - uses: styfle/cancel-workflow-action
        with:
          workflow_id: 479426

Notes:

• workflow_id: Can be a Workflow ID (number) or Workflow File Name (string).
• workflow_id: Accepts a comma-separated list if you need to cancel multiple workflows.
• workflow_id: Accepts the value all, which will cancel all the workflows running in the branch.

Advanced: Pull Requests from Forks​

The default GitHub token access is unable to cancel workflows for pull_request events when a pull request is opened from a fork. Therefore, a special setup using workflow_run, which also works for push, is needed. Create a .github/workflows/cancel.yml with the following content, replacing "CI" with the workflow name that contains the pull_request workflow.

name: Cancel
on:
  workflow_run:
    workflows: ["CI"]
    types:
      - requested
jobs:
  cancel:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: styfle/cancel-workflow-action
      with:
        workflow_id: ${{ github.event.workflow.id }}

Advanced: Ignore SHA​

In some cases, you may wish to cancel workflows when you close a Pull Request. Because this is not a push event, the SHA will be the same, so you must use the ignore_sha option.

on:
  pull_request:
    types: [closed]
jobs:
  cleanup:
    name: 'Cleanup After PR Closed'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    timeout-minutes: 3
    steps:
      - name: Cancel build runs
        uses: styfle/cancel-workflow-action
        with:
          ignore_sha: true
          workflow_id: 479426