GitHub Actions Concurrency Settings

GitHub Actions Concurrency Settings | Generated by AI

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Your current GitHub Actions workflow configuration already has cancel-in-progress: false, which means it should not cancel in-progress jobs for the gh-pages concurrency group. If jobs are still being canceled, there might be another issue or misconfiguration causing this behavior. Below are steps to verify and fix the issue:

1. Confirm Concurrency Settings

Your configuration looks correct for preventing job cancellations:

concurrency:
  group: 'gh-pages'
  cancel-in-progress: false

What this does: The concurrency key with cancel-in-progress: false ensures that multiple workflow runs for the same gh-pages group can run simultaneously without canceling each other.
Where to place it: Ensure this concurrency block is defined at the workflow level (top level of the YAML file, not inside a job or step). For example:

name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
on:
  push:
    branches: [ main ]
concurrency:
  group: 'gh-pages'
  cancel-in-progress: false
jobs:
  build-and-deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      # Your steps here

If the concurrency block is misplaced (e.g., inside a job), it won’t work as expected. Move it to the top level if needed.

2. Check for Conflicting Concurrency Settings

Multiple workflows: If you have multiple workflows (e.g., separate YAML files) that interact with the gh-pages branch, ensure all relevant workflows have cancel-in-progress: false. A single workflow with cancel-in-progress: true (or missing concurrency) could cancel jobs from other workflows.
Repository settings: Check if any repository-level settings or third-party GitHub Actions are enforcing cancellations. For example, some CI/CD integrations or custom actions might override concurrency behavior.

3. Verify Workflow Triggers

Jobs might appear to be “canceled” if triggers are misconfigured or if there are race conditions. Check the on section of your workflow:

Ensure the workflow is triggered only when intended (e.g., on: push: branches: [ main ] or on: pull_request).
If multiple triggers (e.g., push and pull_request) are defined, they might create overlapping runs. Use unique concurrency.group names for different triggers if needed, like:

concurrency:
  group: 'gh-pages-$'
  cancel-in-progress: false

This creates separate concurrency groups for push and pull_request events, preventing them from interfering.

4. Check GitHub Actions Logs

Go to the Actions tab in your GitHub repository and review the logs of canceled jobs.
Look for messages indicating why the job was canceled (e.g., “Canceled due to concurrency” or other reasons like timeouts, manual cancellation, or failures).
If the logs mention concurrency, double-check that all workflows touching the gh-pages branch have cancel-in-progress: false.

5. Handle Manual Cancellations

If someone manually cancels a workflow run via the GitHub UI, it will stop all jobs in that run, regardless of cancel-in-progress: false. Ensure your team knows not to manually cancel runs unless necessary.

6. Consider Workflow Dependencies

If jobs are being canceled due to dependencies or failures in earlier steps:

Check for needs keywords in your workflow. If one job fails, dependent jobs may be skipped or canceled.
Use if: always() to ensure subsequent jobs run even if earlier ones fail:

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      # Build steps
  deploy:
    needs: build
    if: always()
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      # Deploy steps

7. Test with a Minimal Workflow

If the issue persists, create a minimal test workflow to isolate the problem:

name: Test Concurrency
on:
  push:
    branches: [ main ]
concurrency:
  group: 'gh-pages'
  cancel-in-progress: false
jobs:
  test-job:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Sleep to simulate long job
        run: sleep 60
      - name: Print message
        run: echo "Job completed!"

Push multiple commits to trigger concurrent runs and verify if jobs complete without cancellation.

8. Check GitHub Actions Status

Rarely, GitHub Actions may have platform-wide issues. Check the GitHub Status page or recent posts on X about GitHub Actions outages.

9. Debugging Tips

Add a step to log the workflow run ID and concurrency group for debugging:

steps:
  - name: Log run details
    run: echo "Run ID: $, Concurrency Group: $-$"

Use the GitHub Actions API to inspect running workflows programmatically if needed (requires advanced setup).

If It’s Still Not Working

If jobs are still being canceled:

Share the full workflow YAML file and a screenshot or description of the cancellation message from the GitHub Actions logs.
Let me know if you’re using specific actions (e.g., actions/checkout, peaceiris/actions-gh-pages) or if you have multiple workflows interacting with gh-pages.

This will help pinpoint the exact issue. Let me know how I can assist further!

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