Passing information between jobs

Overview

You can use jobs.<job_id>.outputs to create a map of outputs for a job. Job outputs are available to all downstream jobs that depend on this job. For more information on defining job dependencies, see jobs.<job_id>.needs.

Outputs are Unicode strings, and can be a maximum of 1 MB. The total of all outputs in a workflow run can be a maximum of 50 MB.

Job outputs containing expressions are evaluated on the runner at the end of each job. Outputs containing secrets are redacted on the runner and not sent to GitHub Actions.

If an output is skipped because it may contain a secret, you will see the following warning message: "Skip output {output.Key} since it may contain secret." For more information on how to handle secrets, please refer to the Example: Masking and passing a secret between jobs or workflows.

To use job outputs in a dependent job, you can use the needs context. For more information, see "Accessing contextual information about workflow runs."

Example: Defining outputs for a job

jobs:
  job1:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    # Map a step output to a job output
    outputs:
      output1: ${{ steps.step1.outputs.test }}
      output2: ${{ steps.step2.outputs.test }}
    steps:
      - id: step1
        run: echo "test=hello" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
      - id: step2
        run: echo "test=world" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
  job2:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: job1
    steps:
      - env:
          OUTPUT1: ${{needs.job1.outputs.output1}}
          OUTPUT2: ${{needs.job1.outputs.output2}}
        run: echo "$OUTPUT1 $OUTPUT2"

Using Job Outputs in a Matrix Job

Matrices can be used to generate multiple outputs of different names. When using a matrix, job outputs will be combined from all jobs inside the matrix.

jobs:
  job1:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    outputs:
      output_1: ${{ steps.gen_output.outputs.output_1 }}
      output_2: ${{ steps.gen_output.outputs.output_2 }}
      output_3: ${{ steps.gen_output.outputs.output_3 }}
    strategy:
      matrix:
        version: [1, 2, 3]
    steps:
      - name: Generate output
        id: gen_output
        run: |
          version="${{ matrix.version }}"
          echo "output_${version}=${version}" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
  job2:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: [job1]
    steps:
      # Will show
      # {
      #   "output_1": "1",
      #   "output_2": "2",
      #   "output_3": "3"
      # }
      - run: echo '${{ toJSON(needs.job1.outputs) }}'