How to use conditional logic with if expressions in GitHub Actions

if Expressions

if expressions control whether a step or job runs. They evaluate a GitHub expression that must return true or false. Steps with a false condition are skipped, not failed.

Common Conditions

steps:
  - name: Notify on success
    if: success()
    run: echo "Build passed"

  - name: Notify on failure
    if: failure()
    run: echo "Build failed — check logs"

  - name: Always clean up
    if: always()
    run: rm -rf /tmp/build-cache

  - name: Deploy only on main
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main' && success()
    run: ./deploy.sh

  - name: Skip on fork PRs
    if: github.event.pull_request.head.repo.full_name == github.repository
    run: ./integration-test.sh

success() is the default — steps only run when all prior steps passed. failure() runs only after a failure. always() runs regardless of outcome, useful for cleanup. Combine with context comparisons using &&. Note: expressions use == not ===, and strings must be quoted.