GitHub Action that when used together with reusable workflows makes it easier to workaround the limit of 256 jobs in a matrix.
GitHub Actions matrix have limit to 256 items There is workaround to extend the limit with reusable workflows This GitHub Action outputs a JSON structure for up to 3 levels deep of nested matrixes. In theory run 256 ^ 3 (i.e., 16 777 216) jobs per workflow run!
| Matrix max nested level | Total jobs count limit |
|---|---|
| 1 | 256 |
| 2 | 65 536 |
| 3 | 16 777 216 |
If nested-matrices-count input is 1, the output matrix would be JSON formatted string with the following structure
{
"include": [matrix items]
}If nested-matrices-count input is 2 output matrix whould be a JSON formatted string with the following structure
{
"include": [{
"name": "group name",
"items": {
"include": [matrix items]
} ## serialized as string
}]
}If nested-matrices-count input is 3 output matrix would be a JSON formatted string with the following structure
{
"include": [{
"name": "group name",
"items": [{
"name": "chunk 256 range name",
"include": [
"items": {
"include": [matrix items] ## serialized as string
}
]
}] ## serialized as string
} ## serialized as string
}]
}Warning
Make sure you restrict the concurrency of your jobs to avoid DDOS'ing the GitHub Actions API, which might cause restrictions to be applied to your account.
| Matrix max nested level | First Matrix Concurrency | Second Matrix Concurrency | Third Matrix Concurrency |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | x | - | - |
| 2 | 1 | x | - |
| 3 | 1 | 1 | x |
The action have 3 modes depends of how many nested levels you want. The settings affect to reusable workflows count and usage pattern.
.github/workflows/matrices-1.yml
name: Pull Request
on:
pull_request:
branches: [ 'main' ]
types: [opened, synchronize, reopened, closed, labeled, unlabeled]
jobs:
matrix-builder:
runs-on: self-hosted
name: Affected stacks
outputs:
matrix: ${{ steps.extend.outputs.matrix }}
steps:
- id: setup-matrix
uses: druzsan/setup-matrix@v1
with:
matrix: |
os: ubuntu-latest windows-latest macos-latest,
python-version: 3.8 3.9 3.10
arch: arm64 amd64
- uses: cloudposse/github-action-matrix-extended@main
id: extend
with:
matrix: ${{ steps.setup-matrix.outputs.matrix }}
sort-by: '[.python-version, .os, .arch] | join("-")'
group-by: '.arch'
nested-matrices-count: '1'
operation:
if: ${{ needs.matrix-builder.outputs.matrix != '{"include":[]}' }}
needs:
- matrix-builder
strategy:
max-parallel: 10
fail-fast: false # Don't fail fast to avoid locking TF State
matrix: ${{ fromJson(needs.matrix-builder.outputs.matrix) }}
name: Do (${{ matrix.arch }})
runs-on: self-hosted
steps:
- shell: bash
run: |
echo "Do real work - ${{ matrix.os }} - ${{ matrix.arch }} - ${{ matrix.python-version }}".github/workflows/matrices-1.yml
name: Pull Request
on:
pull_request:
branches: [ 'main' ]
types: [opened, synchronize, reopened, closed, labeled, unlabeled]
jobs:
matrix-builder:
runs-on: self-hosted
name: Affected stacks
outputs:
matrix: ${{ steps.extend.outputs.matrix }}
steps:
- id: setup-matrix
uses: druzsan/setup-matrix@v1
with:
matrix: |
os: ubuntu-latest windows-latest macos-latest,
python-version: 3.8 3.9 3.10
arch: arm64 amd64
- uses: cloudposse/github-action-matrix-extended@main
id: extend
with:
sort-by: '[.python-version, .os, .arch] | join("-")'
group-by: '.arch'
nested-matrices-count: '1'
matrix: ${{ steps.setup-matrix.outputs.matrix }}
operation:
if: ${{ needs.matrix-builder.outputs.matrix != '{"include":[]}' }}
uses: ./.github/workflows/matrices-2.yml
needs:
- matrix-builder
strategy:
max-parallel: 1 # This is important to avoid ddos GHA API
fail-fast: false # Don't fail fast to avoid locking TF State
matrix: ${{ fromJson(needs.matrix-builder.outputs.matrix) }}
name: Group (${{ matrix.name }})
with:
items: ${{ matrix.items }}.github/workflows/matrices-2.yml
name: Reusable workflow for 2 level of nested matrices
on:
workflow_call:
inputs:
items:
description: "Items"
required: true
type: string
jobs:
operation:
if: ${{ inputs.items != '{"include":[]}' }}
strategy:
max-parallel: 10
fail-fast: false # Don't fail fast to avoid locking TF State
matrix: ${{ fromJson(inputs.items) }}
name: Do (${{ matrix.arch }})
runs-on: self-hosted
steps:
- shell: bash
run: |
echo "Do real work - ${{ matrix.os }} - ${{ matrix.arch }} - ${{ matrix.python-version }}".github/workflows/matrices-1.yml
name: Pull Request
on:
pull_request:
branches: [ 'main' ]
types: [opened, synchronize, reopened, closed, labeled, unlabeled]
jobs:
matrix-builder:
runs-on: self-hosted
name: Affected stacks
outputs:
matrix: ${{ steps.extend.outputs.matrix }}
steps:
- id: setup-matrix
uses: druzsan/setup-matrix@v1
with:
matrix: |
os: ubuntu-latest windows-latest macos-latest,
python-version: 3.8 3.9 3.10
arch: arm64 amd64
- uses: cloudposse/github-action-matrix-extended@main
id: query
with:
sort-by: '[.python-version, .os, .arch] | join("-")'
group-by: '.arch'
nested-matrices-count: '1'
matrix: ${{ steps.setup-matrix.outputs.matrix }}
operation:
if: ${{ needs.matrix-builder.outputs.matrix != '{"include":[]}' }}
uses: ./.github/workflows/matrices-2.yml
needs:
- matrix-builder
strategy:
max-parallel: 1 # This is important to avoid ddos GHA API
fail-fast: false # Don't fail fast to avoid locking TF State
matrix: ${{ fromJson(needs.matrix-builder.outputs.matrix) }}
name: Group (${{ matrix.name }})
with:
items: ${{ matrix.items }}.github/workflows/matrices-2.yml
name: Reusable workflow for 2 level of nested matrices
on:
workflow_call:
inputs:
items:
description: "Items"
required: true
type: string
jobs:
operation:
if: ${{ inputs.items != '{"include":[]}' }}
uses: ./.github/workflows/matrices-3.yml
strategy:
max-parallel: 1 # This is important to avoid ddos GHA API
fail-fast: false # Don't fail fast to avoid locking TF State
matrix: ${{ fromJson(inputs.items) }}
name: Group (${{ matrix.name }})
with:
items: ${{ matrix.items }}.github/workflows/matrices-3.yml
name: Reusable workflow for 3 level of nested matrices
on:
workflow_call:
inputs:
items:
description: "Items"
required: true
type: string
jobs:
operation:
if: ${{ inputs.items != '{"include":[]}' }}
strategy:
max-parallel: 10
fail-fast: false # Don't fail fast to avoid locking TF State
matrix: ${{ fromJson(inputs.items) }}
name: Do (${{ matrix.arch }})
runs-on: self-hosted
steps:
- shell: bash
run: |
echo "Do real work - ${{ matrix.os }} - ${{ matrix.arch }} - ${{ matrix.python-version }}"| Name | Description | Default | Required |
|---|---|---|---|
| group-by | Group by query | empty | false |
| matrix | Matrix inputs (JSON array or object which includes property passed as string or file path) | N/A | true |
| nested-matrices-count | Number of nested matrices that should be returned as the output (from 1 to 3) | 1 | false |
| sort-by | Sort by query | empty | false |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| matrix | A matrix suitable for extending matrix size workaround (see README) |
Check out these related projects.
- Setup matrix - GitHub action to create reusable dynamic job matrices for your workflows.
For additional context, refer to some of these links.
- github-action-atmos-affected-stacks - A composite workflow that runs the atmos describe affected command
This project is under active development, and we encourage contributions from our community.
Many thanks to our outstanding contributors:
For π bug reports & feature requests, please use the issue tracker.
In general, PRs are welcome. We follow the typical "fork-and-pull" Git workflow.
- Review our Code of Conduct and Contributor Guidelines.
- Fork the repo on GitHub
- Clone the project to your own machine
- Commit changes to your own branch
- Push your work back up to your fork
- Submit a Pull Request so that we can review your changes
NOTE: Be sure to merge the latest changes from "upstream" before making a pull request!
Join our Open Source Community on Slack. It's FREE for everyone! Our "SweetOps" community is where you get to talk with others who share a similar vision for how to rollout and manage infrastructure. This is the best place to talk shop, ask questions, solicit feedback, and work together as a community to build totally sweet infrastructure.
Sign up for our newsletter and join 3,000+ DevOps engineers, CTOs, and founders who get insider access to the latest DevOps trends, so you can always stay in the know. Dropped straight into your Inbox every week β and usually a 5-minute read.
Join us every Wednesday via Zoom for your weekly dose of insider DevOps trends, AWS news and Terraform insights, all sourced from our SweetOps community, plus a live Q&A that you canβt find anywhere else. It's FREE for everyone!
Preamble to the Apache License, Version 2.0
Complete license is available in the LICENSE file.
Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file
distributed with this work for additional information
regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file
to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
"License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
software distributed under the License is distributed on an
"AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the
specific language governing permissions and limitations
under the License.
All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.
Copyright Β© 2017-2026 Cloud Posse, LLC

