Commit or tag pushed by a workflow with GITHUB_TOKEN does not trigger the next workflow

Symptom

A release or deploy workflow on push or tags never starts after a bot commitA pull request opened by a workflow shows checks waiting for approvalManual pushes of the same change trigger normally

Cause

Events caused by GITHUB_TOKEN do not start new workflow runs, to prevent loops. workflow_dispatch and repository_dispatch are the exceptions, and pull requests it opens now create runs that need approval from a user with write access.

Fix

Push with a GitHub App installation token or a fine grained PAT, or chain the next workflow with workflow_dispatch or workflow_run.

ApplyCopy

- uses: actions/create-github-app-token@v2 id: app with: app-id: ${{ vars.APP_ID }} private-key: ${{ secrets.APP_PRIVATE_KEY }} - uses: actions/checkout@v5 with: token: ${{ steps.app.outputs.token }}

Affected

GitHub Actions on github.com, as of October 2026

Sources

• https://docs.github.com/en/actions/concepts/security/github_token

Last verified 2026-10-15 · Confirmed by 0 builders