Dispatch with Fallback

Send a repository_dispatch event to a repository using a GitHub App token, with an optional second identity retried automatically if the first attempt fails. Useful for cross-repo automation — e.g. a release in one repo triggering a docs rebuild in another — where you want a backup identity to retry with if the primary one hits a transient failure, rate limit, or permission issue.

Inputs

• target-owner (required): Owner of the target repository.
• target-repo (required): Name of the target repository, without owner.
• event-type (required): repository_dispatch event type.
• payload (required): JSON string sent as client_payload, e.g. {"version": "${{ github.ref_name }}"}.
• app-id / app-private-key (required): GitHub App credentials for the primary token.
• fallback-app-id / fallback-app-private-key: GitHub App credentials retried if the primary dispatch fails (optional — omit to skip the fallback entirely).

Behavior

If the primary dispatch fails and no fallback credentials are given, this action fails (unless the caller sets continue-on-error: true on its own step). If fallback credentials are given, it retries once with the fallback identity before failing.

Examples

Basic usage (no fallback, non-blocking)

- name: Notify docs repo
  continue-on-error: true
  uses: helpers4/action/dispatch-with-fallback@v1
  with:
    target-owner: my-org
    target-repo: docs-site
    event-type: upstream-release
    payload: '{"version": "${{ github.ref_name }}"}'
    app-id: ${{ vars.RELEASE_APP_ID }}
    app-private-key: ${{ secrets.RELEASE_APP_KEY }}

With a fallback identity

- name: Notify docs repo
  uses: helpers4/action/dispatch-with-fallback@v1
  with:
    target-owner: my-org
    target-repo: docs-site
    event-type: upstream-release
    payload: '{"version": "${{ needs.publish.outputs.new-version }}"}'
    app-id: ${{ vars.RELEASE_APP_ID }}
    app-private-key: ${{ secrets.RELEASE_APP_KEY }}
    fallback-app-id: ${{ vars.BACKUP_APP_ID }}
    fallback-app-private-key: ${{ secrets.BACKUP_APP_KEY }}