Step 4 Using Outputs in Reusable Workflow

In this guide, you’ll learn how to expose and consume outputs from a reusable GitHub Actions workflow. By defining outputs under workflow_call and mapping job outputs, downstream jobs can reference values—such as your application’s ingress URL—without extra scripting.

Background

Our dev-integration-testing job was failing because it tried to read an application URL that wasn’t exposed by the reusable workflow. Although dev-integration-testing depends on dev-deploy, by default reusable-workflow outputs are not forwarded to the caller. We’ll fix this by:

Declaring outputs in the reusable workflow.
Mapping those outputs from a job step.
Consuming the mapped outputs in the caller workflow.

If you don’t define outputs in workflow_call, any values you set inside the workflow won’t be available to the caller.

1. Defining Outputs in Your Reusable Workflow

First, update your reusable workflow (reuse-deployment.yml) to include an outputs block under on.workflow_call. Then map job-level outputs to that workflow output:

name: Deployment - Reusable Workflow

on:
  workflow_call:
    inputs:
      environment:
        description: "Deployment environment"
        required: true
        type: string
      kubectl-version:
        description: "kubectl CLI version"
        required: false
        type: string
        default: "latest"
      mongodb-uri:
        description: "MongoDB connection URI"
        required: true
        type: string
    secrets:
      k8s-kubeconfig:
        required: true
      mongodb-password:
        required: true
    outputs:
      application-url:
        description: "URL for the deployed application"
        value: ${{ jobs.reuse-deploy.outputs.APP_INGRESS_URL }}

jobs:
  reuse-deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment:
      name: ${{ inputs.environment }}
      url: https://${{ steps.set-ingress-host.outputs.APP_INGRESS_HOST }}
    outputs:
      APP_INGRESS_URL: ${{ steps.set-ingress-host.outputs.APP_INGRESS_HOST }}
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Install kubectl CLI
        uses: azure/setup-kubectl@v3
        with:
          version: ${{ inputs.kubectl-version }}

      - name: Set Kubeconfig context
        uses: azure/k8s-set-context@v3
        with:
          kubeconfig: ${{ secrets.k8s-kubeconfig }}

      - name: Obtain ingress host
        id: set-ingress-host
        run: |
          # Simulate fetching the ingress host
          echo "::set-output name=APP_INGRESS_HOST::my-app.${{ inputs.environment }}.example.com"

Inputs and Secrets Reference

Input	Description	Type	Required	Default
environment	Deployment environment	string	true	—
kubectl-version	kubectl CLI version	string	false	latest
mongodb-uri	MongoDB connection URI	string	true	—

Secret	Description	Required
k8s-kubeconfig	Kubernetes cluster authentication	true
mongodb-password	Password for MongoDB	true

We use ${{ jobs.reuse-deploy.outputs.APP_INGRESS_URL }} to map the job’s output to the workflow’s application-url.

2. Original Caller Workflow (Before)

Here’s how the caller workflow referenced APP_INGRESS_URL before the change:

jobs:
  dev-deploy:
    needs: docker
    if: contains(github.ref, 'feature/')
    uses: ./.github/workflows/reuse-deployment.yml
    with:
      mongodb-uri: ${{ vars.MONGO_URI }}
      environment: development
      k8s-manifest-dir: kubernetes/development/
    secrets:
      k8s-kubeconfig: ${{ secrets.KUBECONFIG }}
      mongodb-password: ${{ secrets.MONGO_PASSWORD }}

  dev-integration-testing:
    name: Dev Integration Testing
    needs: dev-deploy
    if: contains(github.ref, 'feature/')
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Test URL Output using curl and jq
        env:
          URL: ${{ needs.dev-deploy.outputs.APP_INGRESS_URL }}  # Not defined
        run: |
          echo $URL
          curl https://$URL/live -s -k | jq -r .status | grep -i live

Since APP_INGRESS_URL wasn’t declared in the reusable workflow’s outputs, dev-integration-testing failed.

3. Consuming Outputs in the Caller Workflow

Update your caller workflow to use the new application-url output:

jobs:
  dev-deploy:
    needs: docker
    if: contains(github.ref, 'feature/')
    uses: ./.github/workflows/reuse-deployment.yml
    with:
      mongodb-uri: ${{ vars.MONGO_URI }}
      environment: development
      k8s-manifest-dir: kubernetes/development
    secrets:
      k8s-kubeconfig: ${{ secrets.KUBECONFIG }}
      mongodb-password: ${{ secrets.MONGO_PASSWORD }}

  dev-integration-testing:
    name: Dev Integration Testing
    needs: dev-deploy
    if: contains(github.ref, 'feature/')
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Test URL Output using curl and jq
        env:
          URL: ${{ needs.dev-deploy.outputs.application-url }}
        run: |
          echo "Application URL: $URL"
          curl https://$URL/live -s -k | jq -r .status | grep -i live

  prod-deploy:
    needs: docker
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    uses: ./.github/workflows/reuse-deployment.yml
    with:
      mongodb-uri: ${{ vars.MONGO_URI }}
      environment: production
      k8s-manifest-dir: kubernetes/production
    secrets:
      k8s-kubeconfig: ${{ secrets.KUBECONFIG }}
      mongodb-password: ${{ secrets.MONGO_PASSWORD }}

  prod-integration-testing:
    name: Prod Integration Testing
    needs: prod-deploy
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Test URL Output using curl and jq
        env:
          URL: ${{ needs.prod-deploy.outputs.application-url }}
        run: |
          echo "Application URL: $URL"
          curl https://$URL/live -s | jq -r .status | grep -i live

4. Testing the Changes

Once you commit these updates:

echo $URL
echo "-----------------------------"
curl https://$URL/live -s -k | jq -r .status | grep -i live

Your logs should resemble:

Application URL: my-app.development.example.com
Status: live

Now both integration-testing jobs will successfully read the ingress URL from the reusable workflow.

Introduction

Continuous Integration with GitHub Actions

Continuous Deployment with GitHub Actions

Reusable Workflows and Reporting

Custom Actions

Self Hosted Runner

Security Guide

GitHub Actions - Core Concepts

Step 4 Using Outputs in Reusable Workflow

Background

1. Defining Outputs in Your Reusable Workflow

Inputs and Secrets Reference

2. Original Caller Workflow (Before)

3. Consuming Outputs in the Caller Workflow

4. Testing the Changes

Links and References

Watch Video

Practice Lab

​Background

​1. Defining Outputs in Your Reusable Workflow

​Inputs and Secrets Reference

​2. Original Caller Workflow (Before)

​3. Consuming Outputs in the Caller Workflow

​4. Testing the Changes

​Links and References

Watch Video

Practice Lab

Background

1. Defining Outputs in Your Reusable Workflow

Inputs and Secrets Reference

2. Original Caller Workflow (Before)

3. Consuming Outputs in the Caller Workflow

4. Testing the Changes

Links and References