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Artifacts

The actions/upload-artifact and download-artifact actions enable you to save output from a job. The artifact will also be visible in the Actions UI under the job summary, at the bottom.

Retention Periods​

Artifacts have a retention period which determines when they will expire and be deleted. You can specify this retention period at the organization, repository, or workflow level.

Example of a custom retention period
YML
  - name: 'Upload Artifact'
    uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
    with:
      name: my-artifact
      path: my_file.txt
      retention-days: 5

Sharing Artifacts Between Jobs​

You might want to use artifacts to share data between jobs. For example you could build your project and save it as an artifact, and then deploy the artifact in a separate job.

Example of sharing artifacts between jobs
YML
name: Share data between jobs

on: [push]

jobs:
  job_1:
    name: Add 3 and 7
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - shell: bash
        run: |
          expr 3 + 7 > math-homework.txt
      - name: Upload math result for job 1
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: homework_pre
          path: math-homework.txt

  job_2:
    name: Multiply by 9
    needs: job_1
    runs-on: windows-latest
    steps:
      - name: Download math result for job 1
        uses: actions/download-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: homework_pre
      - shell: bash
        run: |
          value=`cat math-homework.txt`
          expr $value \* 9 > math-homework.txt
      - name: Upload math result for job 2
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: homework_final
          path: math-homework.txt

  job_3:
    name: Display results
    needs: job_2
    runs-on: macOS-latest
    steps:
      - name: Download math result for job 2
        uses: actions/download-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: homework_final
      - name: Print the final result
        shell: bash
        run: |
          value=`cat math-homework.txt`
          echo The result is $value

Artifact Attestations​

Leverage artifact attestations to create unfalsifiable provenance and integrity guarantees for the software you build.