I have a public repo as a submodule, and I want to checkout a specific tag in the submodule from a github action.

The problem is that when I use “git checkout {tag}” in the github action, it works if I hardcode the tag myself, but when I use the input variable, I get the error “pathspec ‘{tag}’ did not match any file(s) known to git”.

The following should work fine

name: DFIR IRIS DOCKER Build

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      IRIS_VERSION:
        required: true
        description: DFIR IRIS version
        default: v2.4.7
        type: string

permissions:
  id-token: write   # This is required for requesting the JWT
  contents: read    # This is required for actions/checkout


jobs:
  docker-build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          submodules: recursive

      - name: Git Sumbodule Update
        run: |
          git submodule update --remote --recursive
          git checkout v2.4.7

The following uses an input variable, but throws an error.

name: DFIR IRIS DOCKER Build

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      IRIS_VERSION:
        required: true
        description: DFIR IRIS version
        default: v2.4.7
        type: string

permissions:
  id-token: write   # This is required for requesting the JWT
  contents: read    # This is required for actions/checkout


jobs:
  docker-build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          submodules: recursive

      - name: Git Sumbodule Update
        run: |
          git submodule update --remote --recursive
          git checkout ${{ inputs.IRIS_VERSION }}

github action

Run git submodule update --remote --recursive
  git submodule update --remote --recursive
  git checkout v2.4.7
  shell: /usr/bin/bash -e {0}
error: pathspec 'v2.4.7' did not match any file(s) known to git

The final command we ran was “git checkout v2.4.7”, which is all the same, but with the following syntax: git checkout ${{ inputs.IRIS_VERSION }} does not work.

I would like to know how to solve this.