Setting default path in Github Actions `repository_dispatch`

Question

I have a repo containing E2E tests (and only tests) for several separate repos. These tests are activated using a Github Actions workflow on the repo, against applications hosted on a testing server.

There are 2 ways to trigger this workflow: workflow_dispatch so the workflow can be manually triggered on Github, and repository_dispatch so the workflow can be triggered from an external source.

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      TARGET_SUITE:
        default: 'application_A'
  repository_dispatch:
    types: [run-e2e]

jobs:
  # run the workflow

To run a specific suite of tests, I'm relying on the request body from repository_dispatch, i.e. { "target_suite" : "application_A" }

jobs:
...
- if: ${{ github.event.client_payload.target_suite == "application_A" }}
  # run test suite for application A
- if: ${{ github.event.client_payload.target_suite == "application_B" }}
  # run test suite for application B

However, if the workflow is triggered via Github, there would be no client_payload, and none of the tests would run.

How can I setup this workflow so it can accept triggers from either dispatch method? Hopefully not something like this:

- if: ${{ github.event.client_payload.target_suite == "application_A" }}
  # run application A
- if: ${{ github.event.client_payload.target_suite == "application_B" }}
  # run application B
- if: ${{ github.event.inputs.TARGET_SUITE == "application_A" }}
  # run application A
- if: ${{ github.event.inputs.TARGET_SUITE == "application_B" }}
  # run application B

Answer 1

If you're using two different types of events to trigger the workflow, then I don't think it is possible to have the same payloads.

I can think of two options:

• You could write some boilerplate that looks at the client_payload and inputs and sets the target_suite as an output. Subsequent steps could then just look at the output instead of looking at both the inputs and the client_payload
• Alternatively, unless there's a specific reason to trigger a repository_dispatch, you could also trigger a workflow_dispatch from the external source: https://docs.github.com/en/rest/reference/actions#create-a-workflow-dispatch-event