How could I get a customized notification email from a CI action?

[w3ntao]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

💬 Feature/Topic Area

ARC (Actions Runner Controller)

Discussion Details

I simply hope to get a notification email from CI bot for certain cases:

      - name: check condition
        id: check
        run: |
          if [ $condition ]; then
            NOTIFY $REPO_OWNER with_msg "condition satisfied"
            exit 0
          fi

          NOTIFY $REPO_OWNER with_msg "condition failed"

Yet so far the simplest way to achieve such is to setting up a whole SMAP workflow in CI (with Github secrecy etc.), which seems largely overkill.

So, is there any simple ways to get a notification email (hopefully carries an user-customized short message) from a CI action?

// I understand I could update subscriptions to receive all updates on every CI, but there seems no option to customize contents of those notification emails for certain CI behavior.

[pranesh-fortumars]

Yes , there is a simpler way, but GitHub / ARC does not provide a built-in “send custom email from workflow” step by itself.

The native notification system only sends standard workflow status emails (success / failure / cancelled), and you can enable “only failed workflows,” but you cannot customize the email body for specific CI conditions. ([GitHub Docs]1)

So for a custom message like:

“condition satisfied”
“condition failed”

you generally need one of these practical approaches:

---

1) Simplest practical solution → use an email action

The lightest way is to use a marketplace action such as dawidd6/action-send-mail.

Example:

- name: Check condition
  id: check
  run: |
    if [ "$condition" = "true" ]; then
      echo "status=satisfied" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
    else
      echo "status=failed" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
    fi

- name: Send custom email
  uses: dawidd6/action-send-mail@v3
  with:
    server_address: smtp.gmail.com
    server_port: 465
    username: ${{ secrets.EMAIL_USERNAME }}
    password: ${{ secrets.EMAIL_PASSWORD }}
    subject: CI Notification - ${{ steps.check.outputs.status }}
    body: |
      Condition result: ${{ steps.check.outputs.status }}
      Repository: ${{ github.repository }}
      Workflow: ${{ github.workflow }}
    to: your-email@example.com
    from: CI Bot

This is currently the most common and straightforward solution. ([Stack Overflow]2)

---

2) Easier than SMTP → use issue / PR comments instead of email

If email feels overkill, a much simpler workflow-friendly approach is:

• comment on PR
• open issue
• mention repo owner

Example:

- name: Notify via PR comment
  uses: actions/github-script@v7
  with:
    script: |
      github.rest.issues.createComment({
        owner: context.repo.owner,
        repo: context.repo.repo,
        issue_number: context.issue.number,
        body: "Condition failed in CI"
      })

This avoids SMTP setup completely.

---

3) Best modern option → Slack / Teams / Discord

In production CI systems, teams often prefer:

• Slack
• Microsoft Teams
• Discord

instead of email because it is faster and easier to customize. ([GitHub]3)

---

So unfortunately:

No, there is no native simple custom-email API in GitHub Actions / ARC

Native emails are only workflow status notifications.

For custom short messages, a marketplace mail action or chat notification integration is the practical solution.

If you want minimal setup, I’d personally recommend PR comments or Slack notifications over SMTP email.