DevOps / GitHub Actions Interview Questions

What is the difference between push, pull_request, and workflow_dispatch triggers?

These three triggers cover the most common CI/CD use-cases but serve very different purposes. Here is a direct comparison:

GitHub Actions Trigger Comparison
Trigger	When it fires	Typical use-case	Key options
`push`	A commit is pushed to a branch or a tag is created	Deploy to staging/production after merging to main; publish a release on tag push	`branches:`, `tags:`, `paths:`
`pull_request`	A PR is opened, its head branch is updated (synchronised), or specific PR activity occurs (labeled, closed, etc.)	Run tests and linting on every proposed change before it merges; gate merges with required status checks	`branches:` (base branch filter), `types:` (activity type), `paths:`
`workflow_dispatch`	An operator manually triggers the workflow from the GitHub UI, the REST API, or `gh workflow run`	Ad-hoc releases, environment-specific deployments, data migration scripts that should not run automatically	`inputs:` — define typed parameters (string, boolean, choice, environment) that the operator fills in before running

A common pattern is to combine all three: use pull_request for pre-merge tests, push on main for deployment, and workflow_dispatch for manual rollback or hotfix releases. Each trigger runs independently so you can fine-tune which steps run for each event using if: github.event_name == 'push' inside steps.

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Which trigger fires when a branch's commits are pushed but NOT necessarily tied to a pull request? pull_request

✗ Try again — not quite right.

push

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workflow_dispatch

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repository_dispatch

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What unique feature does workflow_dispatch provide that push and pull_request do not? Runs on all branches simultaneously

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Allows typed input parameters supplied by the operator at run time

✓ Well done — that is correct!

Automatically cancels previous runs

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Supports path filtering

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