Steps

Steps are the individual units of work inside a stage. Each step executes a specific task: running a script, building an image, deploying a service, waiting for approval, and more.

A step is the individual unit of work within a stage. Steps run in the order they are defined. You can group steps, run them in parallel, or loop over them using strategies.

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Step types

Step	Description
Run	Executes a shell script on a delegate or remote host
Run test	Runs test scripts and captures results for test reporting
Background	Runs a service in the background for other steps to use (e.g. a database or mock server)
Action	Runs a GitHub Action within your pipeline
Approval	Pauses execution and waits for a user to approve before continuing
Queue	Controls concurrency by queuing pipeline executions
Barrier	Synchronization point that holds parallel stages or steps until all reach the barrier
Group	Organizes steps that run sequentially inside a named container
Parallel	Runs multiple steps simultaneously

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Advanced settings

Every step exposes an Advanced section with the following settings. These work the same way as their stage-level equivalents.

Timeout

Maximum time a step is allowed to run before Harness terminates it. Default is 2h.

steps:
  - name: build
    id: build
    timeout: 10m
    run:
      script: make build

On failure

Defines what Harness does if the step fails. Same list format and action options as stage-level on failure.

steps:
  - name: deploy
    id: deploy
    on-failure:
      - errors:
          - all
        action: ignore
    run:
      script: ./deploy.sh

Strategy

Loops the step multiple times using a for loop, while loop, or matrix. Same syntax as stage-level strategy.

steps:
  - name: test
    id: test
    strategy:
      matrix:
        env:
          - staging
          - production
    run:
      script: ./test.sh ${{ matrix.env }}

Conditional execution

Skips the step based on a JEXL condition evaluated at runtime.

steps:
  - name: notify
    id: notify
    if: <+OnPipelineSuccess>
    run:
      script: ./notify.sh

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Next steps

• Go to Group to organize steps sequentially.

• Go to Parallel to run steps simultaneously.

• Go to Strategy to loop a step across values.

• Go to On failure to handle step-level failures.

• Go to Conditional execution to skip steps conditionally.