Question

A workflow has a 'build' job that compiles a binary into the ./dist directory, and a separate 'deploy' job that needs that compiled binary. The two jobs run on different runners. The deploy job declares 'needs: build'. Which approach correctly makes the compiled binary available to the deploy job?

Accepted Answer

In build, use actions/upload-artifact to upload ./dist; in deploy, use actions/download-artifact to retrieve it before deploying.

Answer

In build, write the ./dist path to $GITHUB_OUTPUT; in deploy, reference needs.build.outputs to access the files.

Answer

In build, append the binary contents to $GITHUB_ENV so the file is available as an environment variable in deploy.

Answer

The ./dist directory is automatically shared because deploy declares 'needs: build', so no additional steps are required.