GitHub Actions ignores updated workflow in pull_request events

[tickwarden]

Why are you starting this discussion?

Bug

What GitHub Actions topic or product is this about?

Workflow Configuration

Discussion Details

⚠️ GitHub Actions uses outdated workflow versions in PR events

Description

When updating a workflow file (e.g. .github/workflows/pr-labels.yml), the new version is not consistently used in pull request events.

Instead, GitHub Actions executes an older version of the workflow, even though the repository contains the updated configuration.

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Observed Behavior

• Updated workflow is committed
• PR is triggered (pull_request)
• Old workflow logic is executed

Examples:

• gh pr edit --label runs even after changing to --add-label
• actions/checkout@v4 still runs after upgrading to @v5
• Node.js 20 deprecation warnings persist after migration

---

Expected Behavior

The latest workflow version should always be used after committing changes.

---

Impact

• Confusing debugging
• Wasted time
• False negatives (fixes appear not working)
• Broken CI during platform migrations

---

Notes

This behavior is not clearly documented and feels like:

• base branch workflow override
• or cached workflow execution

---

Suggestion

• Clearly document workflow resolution behavior
• Provide a way to force refresh workflows
• Ensure latest workflow is respected in PR events

---

Additional Context

This became especially problematic during Node.js 20 deprecation migration. Workarounds like using pull_request_target or pushing to the base branch are not intuitive and not documented clearly.

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[techlinn]

Two different things can cause your issue and they have nothing to do with caching at all lmfao.

If the PR is from a fork, GitHub runs the workflow from your base branch on purpose. A fork can't be allowed to modify its own CI run or it could do anything with your repos secrets. So whatever is in the fork's workflow file is irrelevant. It always uses your base branch's version.

If the PR is from the same repo and you're still seeing old logic, the most likely cause is that you updated the workflow on main after the PR was already open. GitHub builds a merge ref from the PR branch HEAD + the base branch HEAD at the time of the last push to the PR. Changing main doesn't rebuild that. The PR picks up the new workflow version only after new commits land on the PR branch, which forces a fresh merge ref. Push an empty commit to the PR branch and the next run will use the updated workflow!

One other thing i would check is the pull_request_target vs pull_request. They look nearly the same but pull_request_target always runs from the base branch no matter where the PR came from, including same repo branches. If that's what your workflow is using, changes on any PR branch will never take effect. Switch to pull_request and it runs from the PR branch HEAD.

Hope this answers your issue!