[feat req] add option to overwrite existing artifacts

[sni]

What would you like to be added?

It would be nice to have a option to allow overwrite existing artifacts like it was possible in v3.

Why is this needed?

I have an optional workflow step to sign artifacts, it downloads an artifact, signs it and uploads it with the same name again. Worked perfectly fine with actions/upload-artifact@v3.
I tried to use geekyeggo/delete-artifact@v2 but even that doesn't work.
Since this step is not applicable for pull requests, it would make things quite complicated to continue with separate artifact names.

[robherley]

👋 If you need to delete an artifact, you can do it with @actions/github-script.

Here's a full example:

name: Delete Artifact Example
on:
  workflow_dispatch:

permissions:
  actions: write # required permission to delete artifact

jobs:
  upload-and-delete:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - name: Create a File
      run: echo "hello world" > hello.txt
    - name: Upload Artifact
      id: artifact-upload
      uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
      with:
        name: my-artifact
        path: hello.txt
    - name: Delete Artifact
      uses: actions/github-script@v7
      with:
        script: |
          github.rest.actions.deleteArtifact({
            owner: context.repo.owner,
            repo: context.repo.repo,
            artifact_id: ${{ steps.artifact-upload.outputs.artifact-id }}
          });
    - name: Upload Artifact (again)
      uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
      with:
        name: my-artifact
        path: hello.txt

Make sure you have the correct permissions set for the GITHUB_TOKEN, as noted above:

permissions:
  actions: write

I'm not sure if we're going to have an official "overwrite" at this time, since artifacts become immediately available in the public API in v4, unlike in v3 where you had to wait until the end of the run. But thanks for the feedback and I'll bring it up with the team!

[sni]

thanks for the workaround. For now, i just keep using v3 while hoping there will be a option to overwrite again in the future. If there are any implications, you could mention this in the docs and leave the decision to the user?

[onedr0p]

I would like to see this feature added too, I saw the workaround but I will keep using v3 until this is addressed as well.

[zdgeorgiev]

@robherley I guess that will not work in matrix

[robherley]

@zdgeorgiev It still works fine in a matrix:

name: Delete Artifact Matrix Example
on:
  workflow_dispatch:

permissions:
  actions: write # required permission to delete artifact

jobs:
  upload-and-delete:
    strategy:
      matrix:
        example: ['foo', 'bar']
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - name: Create a File
      run: echo "hello world" > hello.txt
    - name: Upload Artifact
      id: artifact-upload
      uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
      with:
        name: my-artifact-${{ matrix.example }}
        path: hello.txt
    - name: Delete Artifact
      uses: actions/github-script@v7
      with:
        script: |
          github.rest.actions.deleteArtifact({
            owner: context.repo.owner,
            repo: context.repo.repo,
            artifact_id: ${{ steps.artifact-upload.outputs.artifact-id }}
          });
    - name: Upload Artifact (again)
      uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
      with:
        name: my-artifact-${{ matrix.example }}
        path: hello.txt

You can even use the list artifacts API in octokit to list/filter/reduce on the artifact names and pass them to delete artifact.

[Borda]

I'm not sure if we're going to have an official "overwrite" at this time

TBH, that would be great as you would have easier interaction among jobs, not when a simple way to pass artifact-id from jon foo to job bar so this with aggregating artifacts may not work :(