| `artifact_name` | `false` | `"github-pages"` | The name of the artifact to deploy |
| `preview` | `false` | `"false"` | Is this attempting to deploy a pull request as a GitHub Pages preview site? (NOTE: This feature is only in alpha currently and is not available to the public!) |
| `GITHUB_PAGES` | This environment variable is created and set to the string value `"true"` so that framework build tools may choose to differentiate their output based on the intended target hosting platform. |
1. The artifact being deployed must have been uploaded in a previous step, either in the same job or a separate job that doesn't execute until the upload is complete. See [`actions/upload-pages-artifact`][upload-pages-artifact] for more information about the format of the artifact we expect.
4. If your Pages site is using a source branch, the deployment must originate from this source branch unless [your environment is protected][environment-protection] in which case the environment protection rules take precedence over the source branch rule
5. If your Pages site is using GitHub Actions as the source, while not required we highly recommend you also [protect your environment][environment-protection] (we will configure it by default for you).
When we invoke a job using GitHub Actions the job requests an OIDC token from GitHub's OIDC provider which responds with a JSON web token (JWT). Each token is unique to each workflow job [learn more about OIDC tokens](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/deployment/security-hardening-your-deployments/about-security-hardening-with-openid-connect#understanding-the-oidc-token).
OIDC tokens are minted within the context of a single job, and are used to form a trust relationship which validates properties of the workflow run against a third-party (e.g. cloud providers such as AWS or Azure). In the context of GitHub Pages, this is most relevant to ensure a workflow respects branch protection settings. To do this, the OIDC token includes a claim about which branch/ref is executing the workflow. The token is passed to the pages deployment API as part of the request payload, where it's decoded internally to validate the claims and verify if that workflow is allowed to deploy to pages.
A common question regarding OIDC tokens is the need to use both `pages:write` and `id-token:write`. The pages permission relates to the `GITHUB_TOKEN` by giving it the permissions to create pages deployments when calling the GitHub API. The id-token permission is necessary to request the OIDC JWT token. For more information on the id-token, check the docs on [adding permissions settings](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/deployment/security-hardening-your-deployments/configuring-openid-connect-in-cloud-providers#adding-permissions-settings).
This action is primarily designed for use with GitHub.com's Actions workflows and Pages deployments. However, certain releases should also be compatible with GitHub Enterprise Server (GHES) `3.7` and above.
2. Publish the draft release from the `main` branch with semantic version as the tag name, _with_ the checkbox to publish to the GitHub Marketplace checked. :ballot_box_with_check:
3. After publishing the release, the [`release` workflow][release] will automatically run to create/update the corresponding major version tag such as `v1`.
