Ancestors included in conditional expressions when only parents should be included 🕵️‍♂️

Describe the bug Given dependant jobs D -> A -> C <- B, and given that A and B might be skipped, I would like C not to run when: a) A and B do not contain at least on successful job, b) any of the jobs including C are cancelled, and c) D has ran successfully

To solve all of these, I have used: !cancelled() && contains(needs.*.result, 'success')

However, this does not prevent C from running if D is successful even if it is not the direct predecessor in the graph, and C needs only A and B.

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Create four jobs A, B, C, and D,
2. Configure the needs statement for C to depend on A and B,
3. Configure the needs statement for A to depend on D,
4. Set the if condition for both A and B to false to force both to skip,
5. Set the if condition on C to !cancelled() && contains(needs.*.result, ‘success’),
6. Run the workflow,
7. Step C is executed even though neither A nor B have successfully ran.

Alternatively, use the following code:

name: Test
on:   
  push:

jobs:
  D:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: true
    steps:
      - run: echo D
  A:
    needs: [D]
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: false
    steps:
      - run: echo A
  B:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: false
    steps:
      - run: echo B
  C:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: [A,B]
    if: ${{ !cancelled() && contains(needs.*.result, 'success') }}
    steps:
      - run: echo C

Expected behavior The expression !cancelled() && contains(needs.*.result, ‘success’) should evaluate to false and job C should not run.

Runner Version and Platform

Version of your runner? ubuntu-latest

OS of the machine running the runner? Linux

What’s not working?

[ruvceskistefan]

After review with the team, you can use following example (as you mentioned in above comments)

    if: |
      always() && 
      (
        needs.A.result == 'success' || 
        needs.B.result == 'success' 
      )

NEEDS on runner has job1, job2 and job3 and that is why when we echo it we get what we expect, but on service side it has all previous jobs (prep as well) and that’s the problem.

[alexandar1000]

Fair enough, thank you for the update and investigating it. Really appreciate it!