Work Avoidance in GitHub Actions
When to Use This Skill
Apply work avoidance patterns to skip unnecessary CI/CD operations.
Skip Before Execute
Detect unchanged content, cached builds, and irrelevant paths before running expensive operations.
When to Apply
Work avoidance is valuable in GitHub Actions when:
- Distribution workflows push files to many repositories
- Release automation bumps versions without content changes
- Scheduled jobs run regardless of whether work exists
- Monorepo builds trigger on any change but only need subset builds
Implementation
| Pattern | Operator Manual | Engineering Pattern | | --------- | ----------------- | --------------------- | | Skip version-only changes | Content Comparison | Volatile Field Exclusion | | Skip unchanged paths | Path Filtering | N/A (native GitHub feature) | | Skip cached builds | Cache-Based Skip | Cache-Based Skip |
Techniques
Implementation Patterns
| Pattern | Operator Manual | Engineering Pattern | | --------- | ----------------- | --------------------- | | Skip version-only changes | Content Comparison | Volatile Field Exclusion | | Skip unchanged paths | Path Filtering | N/A (native GitHub feature) | | Skip cached builds | Cache-Based Skip | Cache-Based Skip |
Anti-Patterns to Avoid
Apply work avoidance patterns to skip unnecessary CI/CD operations.
Skip Before Execute
Detect unchanged content, cached builds, and irrelevant paths before running expensive operations.
When to Apply
Work avoidance is valuable in GitHub Actions when:
- Distribution workflows push files to many repositories
- Release automation bumps versions without content changes
- Scheduled jobs run regardless of whether work exists
- Monorepo builds trigger on any change but only need subset builds
Implementation Patterns
| Pattern | Operator Manual | Engineering Pattern | | --------- | ----------------- | --------------------- | | Skip version-only changes | Content Comparison | Volatile Field Exclusion | | Skip unchanged paths | Path Filtering | N/A (native GitHub feature) | | Skip cached builds | Cache-Based Skip | Cache-Based Skip |
Quick Reference
Check for Meaningful Changes
See examples.md for detailed code examples.
Path-Based Filtering
on:
push:
paths:
- 'src/**'
- 'package.json'
paths-ignore:
- '**.md'
- 'docs/**'
Cache-Based Skip
See examples.md for detailed code examples.
Related
- Work Avoidance Pattern - Conceptual pattern and techniques
- File Distribution - Applies these patterns at scale
- Idempotency - Complementary pattern for safe reruns
When to Apply
Work avoidance is valuable in GitHub Actions when:
- Distribution workflows push files to many repositories
- Release automation bumps versions without content changes
- Scheduled jobs run regardless of whether work exists
- Monorepo builds trigger on any change but only need subset builds
Implementation Patterns
| Pattern | Operator Manual | Engineering Pattern | | --------- | ----------------- | --------------------- | | Skip version-only changes | Content Comparison | Volatile Field Exclusion | | Skip unchanged paths | Path Filtering | N/A (native GitHub feature) | | Skip cached builds | Cache-Based Skip | Cache-Based Skip |
Quick Reference
Check for Meaningful Changes
See examples.md for detailed code examples.
Path-Based Filtering
on:
push:
paths:
- 'src/**'
- 'package.json'
paths-ignore:
- '**.md'
- 'docs/**'
Cache-Based Skip
See examples.md for detailed code examples.
Related
- Work Avoidance Pattern - Conceptual pattern and techniques
- File Distribution - Applies these patterns at scale
- Idempotency - Complementary pattern for safe reruns
Examples
See examples.md for code examples.
Related Patterns
- Work Avoidance Pattern
- File Distribution
- Idempotency