GitHub Actions Tutorial — Viewing Results

Viewing Workflow Results

After a workflow runs, GitHub provides detailed logs and visualizations in the Actions tab. Learning to navigate this interface is essential for monitoring builds and debugging failures.

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The Actions Tab

Go to your repository and click the Actions tab. You’ll see:

1. Workflow list (left sidebar) — All workflows in your repo
2. Workflow runs (main area) — History of all runs with status icons
3. Filters — Filter by event, status, branch, or actor

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Workflow Run Statuses

Icon	Status	Meaning
🟢	Success	All jobs completed without errors
🔴	Failure	One or more jobs failed
🟡	In Progress	Currently running
⚪	Cancelled	Manually cancelled or cancelled by concurrency
🟠	Queued	Waiting for a runner

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Navigating a Workflow Run

When you click on a workflow run, you’ll see:

1. Summary Page

┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  CI Pipeline — Run #42                   │
│  ✅ Success · main · abc1234             │
│                                          │
│  Jobs:                                   │
│  ✅ lint      (12s)                      │
│  ✅ test      (45s)                      │
│  ✅ build     (23s)                      │
│                                          │
│  [Re-run all jobs]  [Re-run failed jobs] │
└──────────────────────────────────────────┘

2. Job View

Click on a job (e.g., “test”) to see its steps:

✅ Set up job                    (2s)
✅ Check out code                (3s)
✅ Set up Node.js 20             (8s)
✅ Install dependencies          (15s)
✅ Run tests                     (18s)
✅ Post Set up Node.js           (1s)
✅ Complete job                   (0s)

3. Step Logs

Click any step to expand its logs:

Run npm test

> my-app@1.0.0 test
> jest

 PASS  src/app.test.js
  ✓ renders hello world (5 ms)

Test Suites: 1 passed, 1 total
Tests:       1 passed, 1 total

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Re-Running Workflows

You can re-run workflows in several ways:

Action	When to Use
Re-run all jobs	Start the entire workflow over
Re-run failed jobs	Only re-run jobs that failed (saves time)
Re-run with debug logging	Re-run with verbose debug output enabled

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Annotations

GitHub Actions can add annotations to your workflow run and even to specific lines in your code:

⚠️ Warning: npm warn deprecated package@1.0.0
❌ Error: Test "should render component" failed at line 42

These annotations appear:

• In the workflow run summary
• In the pull request “Checks” tab
• Inline on the PR “Files changed” view (for code-level annotations)

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Workflow Run on Pull Requests

When a workflow runs on a pull request:

1. A check appears on the PR page
2. Status: “pending” → “success” ✅ or “failure” ❌
3. Merge can be blocked if required checks fail (configured in branch protection rules)

┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Pull Request #15                        │
│                                          │
│  Checks:                                 │
│  ✅ CI Pipeline — All checks passed      │
│  ✅ lint                                 │
│  ✅ test                                 │
│                                          │
│  [Merge pull request]                    │
└──────────────────────────────────────────┘

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Quick Reference

Action	Where
View all workflows	Repository → Actions tab
View run details	Click on a workflow run
View step logs	Click on a job → click a step
Re-run failed	Workflow run → “Re-run failed jobs”
Debug re-run	Workflow run → “Re-run jobs” → “Enable debug logging”
PR checks	Pull request → Checks tab

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