[Bug] Unable to proceed past exercise step 1 by following provided instructions

[david-r-cushman]

Summary

I follow the instructions provided in the exercise step 1, and then cannot proceed to step 2. However, if I ignore the provided instructions, and add in a generic "job" I can proceed to step 2.

How to reproduce

I follow the instructions for "Step 1: Create a workflow" which are as follows

1. Open "skills-hello-github-actions" repo
2. Create a new branch named "welcome-workflow
3. In the "welcome-workflow" branch, navigate to the .GitHub/workflows directory
4. Create a new file named "welcome.yml" in the .GitHub/workflows directory with the following content:
   name: Post welcome comment
   on:
   pull_request:
   types: [opened]
   permissions:
   pull-requests: write
5. Commit changes directly to the "welcome-workflow" branch
6. Wait for "Mona" to check your work and proceed

The exercise never proceeds to step 2. Refreshing the page makes no difference. I just see "please, follow the steps above."

When I check the "Actions" section, I see a red "X" for "Add GitHub Actions workflow for welcome comment" which shows as being for the "welcome-workflow" branch.

When I examine the details of this message I see:

"Check failure on line 1 in .github/workflows/welcome.yml

GitHub Actions
/ .github/workflows/welcome.yml
Invalid workflow file

(Line: 1, Col: 1): Required property is missing: jobs"

The exercise contains a statement "[!NOTE] This is an incomplete workflow file. It is normal if you receive an error message. One step at a time! 😎" which I assume is related to the error that I see, however, the presence of this error appears to prevent the exercise from proceeding.

Below is a screenshot of the error that I see.

How I resolved the issue

I've tried modifying the welcome.yml contents to include a job, and after refreshing the page, the exercise immediately proceeded to step 2. This is the full code that I used to correct the issue:

"name: Post welcome comment

on:
pull_request:
types: [opened]

permissions:
pull-requests: write

jobs:
welcome:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Placeholder step
run: echo "Workflow initialized"

The following screenshot shows that i've now successfully proceeded to the next exercise step, but only after I did not follow the step 1 instructions:

[FidelusAleksander]

Hey @david-r-cushman

Do you maybe still have the repository so I can see the logs?

I just went through the first step and it works as expected

While the welcome.yml workflow fails because as you correctly pointed out is incomplete (Required property is missing: jobs) it does not need to complete successfully to progress to step 2 as it's another workflow Step 1 is the one that does the grading and enables Step 2 and that workflow is complete and working as expected

If you still have the repository I'd be happy to look at it and see where you went wrong and maybe we can document the path better

[david-r-cushman]

Hi @FidelusAleksander

I do indeed still have the repo and I've switched it back to public visibility. I believe you should be able to find what you're looking for here - https://github.com/david-r-cushman/skills-hello-github-actions/actions

[FidelusAleksander]

Thanks for making it public @david-r-cushman !

I see the workflow that was supposed to progress you into step two failed as it did not find the exercise issue

https://github.com/david-r-cushman/skills-hello-github-actions/actions/runs/22147658156

It looks for all issues on the repo and tries to find the one prefixed with Exercise:. Have you by any chance played with the exercise issue title ?

[david-r-cushman]

@FidelusAleksander

I see that too, specifically the "Error: Unhandled error: Error: No exercise issue found." I don't recall making any changes other than what the exercise steps indicated though.

[FidelusAleksander]

Yeah I was expecting that answer. Honestly this seems like the API returned 0 issues on your repository 3 minutes after it was clearly opened

Thanks for flagging this. Maybe something we can talk over with the API/Issues team

[david-r-cushman]

Thank you @FidelusAleksander !