Github action test if a commit containing a specific word was previously made

From a push event, it's possible to extract the commit message by using github.event.commit.message

Here is an example of the github context for a push event.

Note that if there are several commit messages:

• commit[0] contains the oldest commit

${{ github.event.commits[0].message }}

• head_commit contains the youngest commit

${{ github.event.head_commit.message }}

Then, you can check in your job if the commit message contains or not the word you want, for example by using:

if: "!contains(github.event.head_commit.message, 'build')"

Therefore, your workflow could look like this if you don't want the job to be run if the commit message contains the 'build' word:

name: "Testing"

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master

jobs:
  test_the_action:
    if: "!contains(github.event.head_commit.message, 'build')"
    name: Test the action
    runs-on: ubuntu-18.04
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2          
      - uses: suisei-cn/actions-download-file@master
        id: downloadfile
        name: Download a file
        with:
          url: "[API Endpoint](https://api.github.com/repos/suisei-cn/actions-download-file)"
          target: public/
          auto-match: true

      - name: Display the file
        run: head -n8 public/actions-download-file 

Finally, you now also have the option to skip ci workflows with key words in the commit messages.