> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://notes.kodekloud.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Using continue on error expression
> Learn how to apply continue-on-error at step and job level to prevent non-critical failures from stopping your GitHub Actions workflows.
***
title: "Using continue-on-error in GitHub Actions"
description: "Learn how to apply continue-on-error at step and job level to prevent non-critical failures from stopping your GitHub Actions workflows."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GitHub Actions provides the `continue-on-error` keyword to help you manage non-critical failures in your CI/CD workflows. By default, a non-zero exit code stops the job and any downstream steps. With `continue-on-error`, you can:
* Skip failing steps while continuing the job
* Mark jobs as neutral instead of failed
***
## Example Scenario
Imagine a **Code Coverage** job that runs tests and then validates coverage. If coverage falls below your threshold, the job fails immediately:
```console theme={null}
ERROR: Coverage for lines (88.88%) does not meet global threshold (90%)
File % Stmts % Branch % Funcs % Lines Uncovered Line #s
All files 87.88 50 87.5 88.88 21,47-48,56
app.js 87.5 88.88 87.5 88.88 21,47-48,56
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.
```
Because of this exit code, the artifact upload step never runs.
***
## Step-Level continue-on-error
To allow subsequent steps to execute even when coverage fails, add `continue-on-error: true` to the **Check Code Coverage** step:
```yaml theme={null}
jobs:
code-coverage:
name: Code Coverage
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout Repository
uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Setup Node.js
uses: actions/setup-node@v3
with:
node-version: 18
- name: Install Dependencies
run: npm install
- name: Check Code Coverage
continue-on-error: true
run: npm run coverage
- name: Archive Test Result
uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3
with:
name: Code-Coverage-Result
path: coverage
retention-days: 5
```
After this change, the coverage step logs an error but the workflow proceeds:
```console theme={null}
Run npm run coverage
► Solar System@6.7.6 coverage
nyc --reporter cobertura --reporter lcov --reporter text --reporter json-summary mocha app-test.js --timeout 10000 --exit
Server successfully running on port - 3000
Planets API Suite
Fetching Planet Details
✓ it should fetch a planet named Mercury (34ms)
… (other tests)
ERROR: Coverage for lines (88.8%) does not meet global threshold (90%)
Uploading artifact Code-Coverage-Result
```
### Quick Comparison
| Scope | Applies To | Behavior |
| ---------- | --------------- | --------------------------------- |
| Step-Level | Individual step | Only that step can fail silently |
| Job-Level | Entire job | Job marked neutral, continues all |
***
## Job-Level continue-on-error
For matrix-based workflows, you can skip failures across all steps by setting `continue-on-error` at the job level:
```yaml theme={null}
jobs:
code-coverage:
runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
continue-on-error: ${{ matrix.experimental }}
strategy:
fail-fast: false
matrix:
node: [13, 14]
os: [macos-latest, ubuntu-latest]
experimental: [false]
include:
- node: 15
os: ubuntu-latest
experimental: true
steps:
# same steps as above…
```
Setting `fail-fast: false` ensures that other matrix runs continue even if one instance fails.
When `matrix.experimental` is `true`, failures in that job are treated as neutral, allowing the workflow to complete.
***
## Workflow Summary
In the summary below, unit tests pass, the code coverage job finishes with an error annotation, and the **Code-Coverage-Result** artifact is uploaded:
***
## Links and References
* [Workflow syntax for GitHub Actions](https://docs.github.com/actions/using-workflows/workflow-syntax-for-github-actions)
* [Storing workflow data as artifacts](https://docs.github.com/actions/using-workflows/storing-workflow-data-as-artifacts)