Lab: Event - GitHub Discussions

Introduction

In this lab, you will create a GitHub Actions workflow that is triggered whenever a new GitHub Discussion is created, edited, or deleted in your repository. This lab will help you understand how to use the discussion event and interact with its payload using github.event.

Estimated Duration: 20–30 minutes

Instructions

Step 1: Enable Discussions in Your Repository

  1. Navigate to your GitHub repository.
  2. Click the Settings tab.
  3. In the left sidebar, select General.
  4. Scroll to the Features section.
  5. Ensure the Discussions checkbox is checked.

If the option is not available, make sure you have admin access to the repository.

Step 2: Create the Workflow File

  1. Navigate to the Code tab of your repository.

  2. In the file explorer, create the following folder structure if it doesn’t exist:

    • .github/workflows/
  3. Inside the workflows folder, create a file named: .github/workflows/discussion-event-workflow.yml
  4. Paste the following workflow content into the editor:
name: Handle GitHub Discussion Events

on:
  discussion:
    types:
      [
        created,
        edited,
        deleted,
        pinned,
        unpinned,
        locked,
        unlocked,
        transferred,
        category_changed,
        answered,
        unanswered,
      ]

jobs:
  handle-discussion:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Print full event payload
        run: |
          echo "Full event payload:"
          echo "$"

      - name: Print discussion metadata
        run: |
          echo "🗣️ Event Type: $"
          echo "📌 Title: $"
          echo "✍️ Author: $"
          echo "📝 Category: $"
          echo "💬 Body: $"

      - name: On Create
        if: github.event.action == 'created'
        run: echo "🎉 A new discussion was created!"

      - name: On Edit
        if: github.event.action == 'edited'
        run: echo "✏️ A discussion was edited!"

      - name: On Delete
        if: github.event.action == 'deleted'
        run: echo "🗑️ A discussion was deleted!"
  1. Scroll down and click Commit new file.

Step 3: Trigger the Workflow

  1. Go to the Discussions tab of your repository.
  2. Click New discussion.
  3. Choose a category (e.g., General).
  4. Enter a title and body.
  5. Click Start discussion to trigger the created event.

You can also:

Step 4: View the Workflow Execution

  1. Navigate to the Actions tab of your repository.
  2. Select the run with the name Handle GitHub Discussion Events.
  3. Click the handle-discussion job.

  4. Expand the steps to view:

    • Event type and discussion details
    • Conditional messages depending on the event

Supported types for the discussion Event

GitHub Actions supports the following activity types for the discussion event:

Type Description
created When a new discussion is created
edited When the title or body is edited
deleted When a discussion is deleted
pinned When a discussion is pinned
unpinned When a discussion is unpinned
locked When a discussion is locked
unlocked When a discussion is unlocked
transferred When a discussion is moved between repos
category_changed When the category of the discussion changes
answered When a comment is marked as the answer
unanswered When the answer status is removed

💡 Note: Adding or removing a label to a discussion does not trigger the discussion event.

Summary

In this lab, you learned how to:

This lays the foundation for building more advanced automation workflows around GitHub Discussions (e.g., moderation, analytics, notifications).

Additional Resources

  1. GitHub Actions - Events that trigger workflows
  2. GitHub Discussions Documentation
  3. Understanding the GitHub Actions Contexts