Selecting a workflow to run using pipeline parameters

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Cloud
This document is applicable to CircleCI Cloud
Server v4+
This document is applicable to CircleCI Server v4+

You might find that you want to manually trigger a specific workflow to run using the API but still run a workflow on every push to your project. To achieve this, use pipeline parameters to decide which workflow(s) to run.

config.yml

The following example defaults to running the build workflow, but allows control of which other workflow to run using the API:

version: 2.1

parameters:
  action:
    type: enum
    enum: [build, report]
    default: build

jobs:
  build:
    docker:
      - image: cimg/base:2023.11
    steps:
      - checkout
      - run: ./run-tests.sh

  report:
    docker:
      - image: cimg/base:2023.11
    steps:
      - checkout
      - run: ./create-report.sh

workflows:
  build:
    when:
      equal: [ build, << pipeline.parameters.action >> ]
    jobs:
      - build

  report:
    when:
      equal: [ report, << pipeline.parameters.action >> ]
    jobs:
      - report

Supply parameter with API

The action parameter will default to build on pushes to the project. Below is an example of supplying a different value to action using the API v2 Trigger a New Pipeline endpoint to select a different workflow to run.

In this example, the workflow named report would run. Remember to substitute project-slug with your values.

curl -X POST https://circleci.com/api/v2/project/{project-slug}/pipeline \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "Circle-Token: API_KEY" \
  -d '{ "parameters": { "action": report } }'

Next steps

For more information on using API v2 endpoints, see the API Reference Documentation and the API Developers Guide end-to-end example.