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GitHub Action that when used together with reusable workflows makes it easier to workaround the limit of 256 jobs in a matrix.

Introduction

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

Usage

The action have 3 modes depends of how many nested levels you want. The settings affect to reusable workflows count and usage pattern.

1 Level of nested matrices

.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 }}"

2 Level of nested matrices

.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 }}"

3 Level of nested matrices

.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 }}"

Inputs

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

Outputs

Name Description
matrix A matrix suitable for extending matrix size workaround (see README)

Related Projects

Check out these related projects.

  • Setup matrix - GitHub action to create reusable dynamic job matrices for your workflows.

References

For additional context, refer to some of these links.

✨ Contributing

This project is under active development, and we encourage contributions from our community.

Many thanks to our outstanding contributors:

For πŸ› bug reports & feature requests, please use the issue tracker.

In general, PRs are welcome. We follow the typical "fork-and-pull" Git workflow.

  1. Review our Code of Conduct and Contributor Guidelines.
  2. Fork the repo on GitHub
  3. Clone the project to your own machine
  4. Commit changes to your own branch
  5. Push your work back up to your fork
  6. 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!

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License

License

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.

Trademarks

All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.


Copyright Β© 2017-2026 Cloud Posse, LLC

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GitHub Action that when used together with reusable workflows makes it easier to workaround the limit of 256 jobs in a matrix

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