Workflow Dispatch

ELI5 — The Vibe Check

Workflow Dispatch is the 'run this manually' button for GitHub Actions. Instead of waiting for a push or PR, you click a button and pass it inputs. Need to deploy a specific branch? Re-run a migration? Workflow Dispatch. It's the remote control for your CI/CD.

Real Talk

The workflow_dispatch event in GitHub Actions allows manual triggering of workflows via the GitHub UI, API, or CLI. It supports typed inputs (string, boolean, choice, environment) that are passed to the workflow, enabling on-demand operations like deployments, data migrations, or maintenance tasks.

Show Me The Code

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      environment:
        type: choice
        options: [staging, production]
      dry_run:
        type: boolean
        default: true
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: echo "Deploying to ${{ inputs.environment }}"

When You'll Hear This

"We trigger production deploys via workflow_dispatch — no accidental pushes." / "The dispatch input lets us choose which environment to deploy to."