Advice: Is it possible to only retry subactions if one has already passed (build matrix)

[tyeth]

Hi, there's this action that's basically a build matrix, and I wonder if it is possible to check if one of the jobs has a pass, i.e. the code at least builds on one platform/environment, as the check condition for retrying any failures in the same or other jobs. This is the file: https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_Wippersnapper_Arduino/blob/main/.github/workflows/build-clang-doxy.yml There's basically a large chance of one or more spurious failures.

[dmvict]

Hello @tyeth

The action retries the failed commands or actions. If you add a wretry.action in some command, then the all matrix jobs will have the step with action. The action skips successful steps and retries only failed.

As I understand, you want to have some kind of orchestrator for matrix of jobs. The wretry.action cannot orchestrate jobs/steps, it only wraps a command/step.

You can add a step with wretry.action and check results. For example, create alternative workflow in experimental branch and check the runs.

[tyeth]

Thanks for the clarification, and yes you understood me correctly 🙂

I will have to play more, or maybe find a job level compatible GitHub action for retries

[tyeth]

Having thought about it I could just set the builds step to retry twice, but that seems gratuitously wasteful in the case of actual failures due to bad code.

I wonder if there is a way to distinguish a failure between a timeout as opposed to a clear build failure (the builds basically say building in the output then never return anything else). I should turn on debug logging and see what's returned.

[dmvict]

The wretry.action can handle the cases where the the command/action returns non zero exit code. It is not safe to provide user defined error handler.

Maybe, you can setup error handler in your step. If it will be a step with command, then you need no wretry.action, you can retry it from command line.