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{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","headline":"CodeQL Action fails to handle multi_select repository properties (expects string, gets array)","articleBody":"## Description\n\nWhen an organization defines a custom repository property with `value_type: multi_select`, the `Initialize CodeQL` step logs a warning and fails to load repository properties entirely:\n\n```\n##[warning]Failed to load repository properties: Encountered an error while trying to determine repository properties: Error: Expected repository property 'products' to have a string value, but got: {\"property_name\":\"products\",\"value\":[\"scan\"]}\n```\n\nThis occurs because the action expects all repository property values to be strings, but the GitHub API correctly returns `multi_select` properties as arrays of strings.\n\n## Steps to reproduce\n\n1. Create an org-level custom property with `value_type: multi_select` (e.g. `products`)\n2. Set a value on a repository (e.g. `[\"scan\"]`)\n3. Run CodeQL default setup on that repository — the `Initialize CodeQL` step will log the above warning\n\n## Expected behaviour\n\nThe action should handle `multi_select` property values (arrays of strings) without erroring. It could either:\n- Treat each element as a separate value to match against, or\n- Skip property-based filtering for `multi_select` properties rather than failing entirely\n\n## Actual behaviour\n\nThe action throws `Expected repository property 'products' to have a string value` and skips all repository property-based configuration, even for properties that are not the `multi_select` one.\n\n## Impact\n\n- CodeQL analysis still runs and completes successfully (the warning is non-fatal)\n- However, any org-level policy that would be selected based on repository properties is not applied\n- The warning is noise in logs and may be mistaken for a failure\n\n## Environment\n\n- `github/codeql-action`: v4 (default setup, auto-generated workflow)\n- Repository property type: `multi_select` (GitHub org custom properties API)\n- Language analysed: `javascript-typescript`, `actions`\n\n## Workaround\n\nNone available at the repository or organisation level without either:\n- Changing the property type to `single_select` (breaks repos that legitimately have multiple values), or\n- Removing the property value from the repository (loses classification metadata)\n\nThe fix needs to be in the action itself to handle array-valued properties.","author":{"url":"https://github.com/john-latham","@type":"Person","name":"john-latham"},"datePublished":"2026-03-06T17:25:51.000Z","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":"https://schema.org/CommentAction","userInteractionCount":1},"url":"https://github.com/3555/codeql-action/issues/3555"}