Show GitHub Action Job Summary while job is running

[IndritFejza]

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Misc

Discussion Details

Hi,
Is it possible to render a GHA Job Summary (while the jobs is running) and not at the very end?

I understand that each Job has access to its own GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY environment file and we can write to that.
And normally the Summary page in a GHA Workflow shows the aggregated individual Job summaries (per each Job, after each Job finishes).

Is it possible to show/write/display to that Workflow Summary, for each individual Job summaries, something while the Job is still running and not at the end?
Writing to this GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY env file while the Job is running does not display it in the Workflow Summary, so it seems that this job-step specific file is read/parsed at the very end of the Job-run.
Could this be changed?
It would be very useful to have a "live-view" of the Job while its running, without having the need to go to the individual Job and search in the logs.

[soenmezanil]

Unfortunately, no. You can’t make the workflow summary update while a job is still running.

The $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY file only affects the job summary, and those updates only get aggregated into the overall workflow summary once the job finishes. So the workflow summary page won’t show anything from a job until that job has completed.

That said, you can still update the job’s own summary progressively by writing to $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY in multiple steps. Each step’s output will show up as soon as that step finishes, so people can see partial updates if they open the job view directly.

If you really need live updates visible during the run, you’d have to use a different channel, like posting comments on a PR, uploading artifacts, or logging progress to the console.

Hope it helps!

[IndritFejza]

I see. Thanks for the reply 👍