How to get current environment name?

Question

In GitHub Workflow I'm looking for a build-in variable which would contain the name of the current GH deployment environment (e.g. "staging") or be blank/unset if no such thing exist.

Since there doesn't seem to be a build-in variable for it (perhaps I'm overlooking it?), is there another way that this value can be obtained from within a pipeline step?

Here's an example workflow:

jobs:

  job1:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: uat

    steps:
      - name: 'Print name'
        run: echo "GH deployment env : ..."

  job2:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: staging

    steps:
      - name: 'Print name'
        run: echo "GH deployment env : ..."

Idiomorphic

You can access environment name from deployment object. Ref How environments relate to deployments – Justiceship

@Haridarshan: How would that be available to the pipeline? Can you make an example? – Idiomorphic

I haven't tried it but I think you can check it by printing the github/job context object like this run: echo '${{ toJSON(github) }}' – Justiceship

To be clear, the value needs (in my mind) to either be available as a build-in variable or indirectly in one of the contexts vars. Otherwise I just cannot figure out how I would use it from within a Step. – Idiomorphic

Is there a deployment object in your job github context? If I remember correctly, in that case there would be 2 fields environment andoriginal_environment there (edit: I found an example in this workflow run, in the Dump Github Context step): Using event.deployment.environment should return the value in the workflow. – Lopeared

The github context (when printed using ${{ toJSON(github) }}) does not have any deployment object, nor can I find any documentation that it is supposed to have that. – Idiomorphic

Answer 1

I've tried different ways, but the only one that actually worked was using the matrix configuration.

https://docs.github.com/en/actions/learn-github-actions/contexts#matrix-context

name: GitHub Actions Demo
run-name: ${{ github.actor }} is testing out GitHub Actions 🚀
on: 
  push:
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  Deploy-DEV:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      matrix:
        environment: [DEV]    

    steps:            
      - run: echo "💡 Deploying to ${{ matrix.environment }}."            

  Deploy-QA:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: Deploy-DEV
    strategy:
      matrix:
        environment: [QA]    

    steps:            
      - run: echo "💡 Deploying to ${{ matrix.environment }}." 

Araroba

Thanks. I haven't tried your suggestion, but you've documented it well. Kudos. I'll accept your answer. – Idiomorphic

Actually that does not work at all because it disable the functionality of the job.environment. matrix.environment is just a field value without any special meaning. – Tva

Answer 2

I created an action for that use case https://github.com/qoomon/actions--context

Usage Example

jobs:
  example:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: playground
    permissions:
      actions:     read  # required for qoomon/actions--context action
      deployments: read  # required for qoomon/actions--context action
      contents: read
    steps:
      - uses: qoomon/actions--context@v1
        id: context

      - run: |
          echo "Current Environment: ${{ steps.context.outputs.environment }}"
          echo "Job Logs: ${{ steps.context.outputs.job_log_url }}"

Tva