How to cancel a job from a step?

[TWiStErRob]

Select Topic Area

Question

Body

I found how to cancel the whole workflow. What I'm looking for is how to cancel a single job within a workflow and keep others running.

I know how to fail the job, with a step: - run: exit 1, I'm looking for the equivalent which results in cancelled() being true for the rest of the job's steps.
Note: I would be ok with skipped() as well.

Essentially a coding equivalent would be an early return:

function workflow() {
    async job1();
    async job2();
}

function job1() {
    if (condition) return; // cancel job
    checkout();
    build();
}

function job2() {
    // steps not related to condition
}

I know of two workarounds, but they have serious drawbacks that make them infeasible to use IRL:

• Add if: !condition to all further steps: this is maintenance hell, I don't want the rest of the workflow to know that those steps could be cancelled by an earlier step. It breaks so many principles of code.
• Separate the job and use needs:, this creates noise in the workflow and on PRs because of an implementation detail. It's confusing and unnecessary to make things visible. All I want is 1 cancelled job, and everything else stays the same.

Is all hope lost on actions/runner#662 ?

[github-actions[bot]]

🕒 Discussion Activity Reminder 🕒

This Discussion has been labeled as dormant by an automated system for having no activity in the last 60 days. Please consider one the following actions:

1️⃣ Close as Out of Date: If the topic is no longer relevant, close the Discussion as out of date at the bottom of the page.

2️⃣ Provide More Information: Share additional details or context — or let the community know if you've found a solution on your own.

3️⃣ Mark a Reply as Answer: If your question has been answered by a reply, mark the most helpful reply as the solution.

Note: This dormant notification will only apply to Discussions with the Question label. To learn more, see our recent announcement.

Thank you for helping bring this Discussion to a resolution! 💬

[TWiStErRob]

Not outdated, still perfectly valid, this is product feedback that was never acknowledged.

[lczech]

Agreed, it would be useful to be able to cancel an individual job, instead of just having a button for the whole workflow run.

[plxel]

looks like still actual?

no way to cancel individual job from workflow?

why this is closed?