Internal/private starter workflows support for GHE

[badbort]

As title, it would be nice to have starter workflows available to GHE without being forced to make the .github repository public. Anyone with access to those internal repos should see those starter workflows as options when creating a workflow

Following this documentation I've been able to get starter workflows working on my personal public test org setup, however making my workplace org .github repo public is unrealistic.

I'd like to either:

• Allow .github to remain internal and support starter workflows
• Extend starter workflows to the .github-private repository
• .github-internal ??

[burib]

@badbort unfortunately the referenced documentation doesn't tell you but it's possible to have private/internal reusable workflows.

1. create a .github-private repository
2. place your workflows to .github/workflows/
3. Enable the access to this repo from the GitHub Actions workflows:
   3.1 Visit https://github.com/MY_ORG/.github-private/settings/actions
   3.2 Change Actions permissions to option 3 ( accessible by ORG ) OR option 4 ( accessible by whole enterprise )
4. reference that workflow for example as in your repo:

name: 'sample pr workflow'

on:
  pull_request:

jobs:
  hello:
    uses: MY_ORG/.github-private/.github/workflows/hello.yml
   # uses: MY_ORG/.github-private/.github/workflows/hello.yml@BRANCH_NAME
   # uses: MY_ORG/.github-private/.github/workflows/hello.yml@VERSION_NUMBER
   # uses: MY_ORG/.github-private/.github/workflows/hello.yml@COMMIT_HASH

references:
https://dev.to/n3wt0n/finally-custom-github-actions-in-internal-repos-4l91

notes:
I guess you can call .github-private something else as well, I haven't tried it. please let me know if you did and it works.

[Fleshgrinder]

What you are describing are reusable actions, not reusable workflows. Reusable actions can be defined in any internal repository, and then reused across the organization.

Pro tip: Call your internal repository actions and follow the recommended structure of having a directory per reusable action, just like when you create real actions. Afterwards your workflow files look really nice, e.g.:

jobs:
  sample:
    uses: acme/actions/checkout
    uses: acme/actions/build
    uses: acme/actions/test

[burib]

@Fleshgrinder thank you for your input. Why is it a reusable action I'm describing ? ( other than the link I've attached )

[Fleshgrinder]

A workflow is everything (e.g. name, on, jobs) and an action is what you reference after uses.

[m0un10]

@Fleshgrinder uses at the step-level is an action. whereas uses at the job-level (i.e. in @burib 's example) is a reusable workflow.

E.g. Actions

jobs:
  sample:
    steps:
    - uses: acme/actions/checkout
    - uses: acme/actions/build
    - uses: acme/actions/test

Reusable workflows

jobs:
  sample:
    uses: owner/repo/.github/workflows/my-workflow.yaml@v1

[m0un10]

also worth noting that @burib's answer whilst useful is about reusable workflows not starter workflows which is what the original question was about.

[dsdavis4]

Im not sure that either of the comments here answer the original question. The original question is for starter-workflows, not reusable workflows. I am running into the same issue that @badbort is asking about. It would be great if starter workflows were available to the .github-private repository. But this does not appear to work

[knxp34]

I too would love to be able to use INTERNAL repos for this feature. The less we expose as public the better things are for security.

[jpadif]

Yes, we have the same issue, we have created a folder named workflow-templates within our .github repository, we followed the instructions to create a workflow and its metadata, but since our .github repository is internal, starter workflows are not being shown in other repositories.

[tamer-abdulghani]

Same here, we are waiting for this feature since more than a year, to be able to create starter workflows shared across the organization teams but from private .github repo.

[eukota]

Just ran into this issue. Internal ".github" repo with workflow-templates appears to remain unsupported.

Making the repository public in my workplace is not really a good path forward. Any updates GitHub?

[saggl]

pls GitHub team we as a ci/cd team want to server our organisation with reusable workflows and we want to use the starterworkflows as interface to our customers. but in ghec we can't setup the .github repo as public only internal would okay for us. tom please help us=) @ashtom @scottdensmore

[ehrnst]

I'm doing a migration to github, and stumbled across this issue today. My impression was that starter workflows where of course private to the organization/enterprise. I'm a bit shocked this is not possible. Spent around 10 hours building these workflows, and now I have to re-think the strategy. This feature needs to be added ASAP. Without it, custom starter workflows has no value for an organization who will use github for internal purposes.