gh api -q parses the response as JSON before applying the filter. A zero-byte raw file is not valid JSON, so the filter never gets a chance to return empty. In a Bash step, let gh api output the raw file and pipe it to external jq instead:

set -o pipefail
gh api -H 'Accept: application/vnd.github.raw+json' \
  '/repos/OWNER/REPO/contents/result.json?ref=BRANCH' | jq -r '.query // empty'

I tested this with gh 2.45.0 against a zero-byte file: gh api --jq failed, while the pipeline returned no output with exit 0. A nonempty JSON file returned its field value. pipefail still makes an API request failure fail the step. Replace the repository, path, and ref with yours.

When the file is empty or the -q filter can't match, gh api -q can exit non-zero. Workarounds:

1. Don't fail the step by default:

gh api -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.VERSION.raw" \
  "/repos/BuddyTV/xxx/result.json?ref=xxx" -q '. // empty' || echo '{}'

2. Read raw then parse defensively:

raw=$(gh api -H "Accept: application/vnd.github.VERSION.raw" "/repos/.../result.json?ref=xxx" 2>/dev/null || echo '')
if [ -z "$raw" ] || [ "$raw" = "null" ]; then
  raw='{}'
fi
echo "$raw" | jq '.'

3. Or use curl directly to the raw file URL (more predictable for empty files):

curl -fsSL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BuddyTV/xxx/xxx/result.json" || echo '{}'

If this avoids the failure, please mark this comment as the answer — thanks!