GitHub Actions Triggers Cheat Sheet: Events & Filters

Every workflow trigger and filter you configure under on:, in one reference.

Events, activity types, and the path/branch filters that control when workflows run.

Common events

Event	Fires on
push	Commits pushed to a ref
pull_request	PR activity (fork = no secrets)
pull_request_target	PR event, base-repo context
workflow_dispatch	Manual run with inputs
schedule	Cron (UTC, default branch only)
workflow_call	Called as reusable workflow
release	Release published/created
issue_comment	Comment on issue/PR

Activity types

Event:type	Meaning
pull_request: [opened, synchronize]	New PR or new push
pull_request: [closed]	Merged or closed
release: [published]	Release goes public
issues: [labeled]	Label added

Filters

.github/workflows/ci.yml

on:
  push:
    branches: [main, 'release/**']
    tags: ['v*']
    paths: ['src/**', '!**/*.md']
  pull_request:
    branches-ignore: [experimental]
    paths-ignore: ['docs/**']

Manual inputs

workflow_dispatch

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      env:
        type: choice
        options: [dev, prod]
      dry_run:
        type: boolean
        default: true

Key takeaways

paths and branches use glob patterns; ! negates.
schedule only runs on the default branch.
pull_request from a fork has no access to secrets.