How to Use a Concurrency Group Per Pull Request in GitHub Actions

Keying the concurrency group on the PR number cancels stale runs for that PR without touching any other PR.

On pull_request events, use github.event.pull_request.number (or github.head_ref) in the group. Each PR gets its own lane, so a fresh push cancels only the outdated run for that same PR.

Steps

• Trigger on pull_request.
• Key group on the PR number or github.head_ref.
• Set cancel-in-progress: true to drop superseded PR runs.

Workflow

on: [pull_request]
concurrency:
  group: pr-${{ github.event.pull_request.number }}
  cancel-in-progress: true
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npm test

Gotchas

• github.head_ref is empty on push events, so this pattern is for pull_request workflows.
• Add github.workflow to the key if several workflows share the PR number space.

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