Workflow triggered by push shows up in PR as checks

[mortenlerudjordet]

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I have a dev-branch and workflows targeting this branch with code:

name: dev-deploy-azure-workload

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - dev
    paths:
      - '.github/workflows/dev-deploy-azure-workload.yaml'
      - '.github/workflows/template-deploy-azure-workload.yaml'
      - '!app/**'
      - '!*.md'
  workflow_dispatch:
...

Now this works as expected when pushing to dev the workflow triggers.
Now if I create a PR right after the push, these running workflows appear as checks on the PR even if nothing in the workflow references PR logic at all.
Is this the expected behaviour?

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[SuperSection]

Yes, this is expected behavior.

GitHub automatically associates the latest commit status (and any running workflows) on the source branch (dev in your case) with the pull request, even if those workflows weren’t triggered by the PR itself.

GitHub shows these checks in the PR to:

• Help reviewers see the status of the latest commit being proposed for merge.
• Ensure the source branch is passing all its checks, even if the workflow wasn’t PR-specific.

📝 Note: It doesn’t mean the workflow was triggered by the PR — GitHub shows running or completed workflows on the source branch in the PR view, to give visibility. They’re just shown there for information.

[harishforge]

Hey! 👋 Yep, this is actually expected behavior.

Even though the workflow is triggered only on push (and not on pull_request), GitHub still shows the status of that workflow as a check on the PR. That’s because the PR includes the same commit that triggered the workflow, and GitHub surfaces the status of that commit in the PR view - just to give better visibility.

So while the PR didn’t trigger the workflow directly, it’s still showing the result of the latest commit checks, which can be helpful for reviewers.

Hope that clears it up! ✅

[mortenlerudjordet]

@SuperSection & @harish-govindasamy, thanks for the explanation and taking the time to enlighten me.