"Can't find 'action.yml'" in reusable workflow - github

Question

I have below structure:
.github
└── workflows
└── main.yml
└── send_alerts.yml
Now in main, I am using
jobs:
main:
steps:
- name: Git Checkout
uses: actions/checkout#v3
- name: some job
run: |
......
send_alerts:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout#v3
- uses: ./.github/workflows/send_alerts.yml#feature/workflow1
with:
provision_status: "Success"
in my send_alerts.yml
name: Creating and Sending Alerts/Status
on:
workflow_call:
provision_status:
required: true
type: string
jobs:
create_send_alerts:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Git Checkout
uses: actions/checkout#v3
- name: Some other jobs
run: |
.....
so this thorws me error:
Can't find 'action.yml', 'action.yaml' or 'Dockerfile' under '/home/runner/work/git-repo/.github/workflows/send_alerts.yml#feature/workflow1'. Did you forget to run actions/checkout before running your local action?
So my question is why it is complaining about action in send_alerts for main? while in the main.yml same actions/checkout#v3 works just fine?
I tried both actions/checkout#v2 and v3 in all cases I have same error

Answer 1

There are at least three things wrong:
You're calling a reusable workflow like an action. The call to a reusable workflow replaces the entire job, not just one step.
When you reference a workflow (or an action) that's in the same repository, with a relative path, you must not add an #version suffix. If you look at the error message, the runner is interpreting that as a directory name.
Both together result in something like this:
send_alerts:
uses: ./.github/workflows/send_alerts.yml
with:
provision_status: "Success"
You have to declare the parameter in an inputs object in the reusable workflow:
on:
workflow_call:
inputs:
provision_status:
required: true
type: string