Plugin deploy workflow does not work for initial plugin deployment

[felixarntz]

Bug Description

I just did a dry run test of deploying the view-transitions plugin in a first version (see #1997).

The workflow failed because in the "Check if deployment is needed" step the workflow makes an API request to WordPress.org, which leads to a 404 because the plugin isn't launched yet. So it's not the right conclusion to not deploy because of that.

We should probably change it so that:

• either a 404 error just leads to deploy=true being set, because there is no version deployed yet
• or (maybe safer) for new plugins we require an extra flag to still proceed in this case (or bypass the whole check entirely)

Here's the failing workflow: https://github.com/WordPress/performance/actions/runs/15401715502/job/43335668619

[sarthak-19]

@felixarntz I previously worked on setting up Codecov, so I'm bit familiar with the workflows.
I can pick this issue.
Just a minor blocker is, I'm not sure that after adding a fix in .github/workflows/deploy-plugins.yml for incorporating either of the below solution

either a 404 error just leads to deploy=true being set, because there is no version deployed yet
or (maybe safer) for new plugins we require an extra flag to still proceed in this case (or bypass the whole check entirely)

How can I test if it's working or not, like how can I manually trigger the actions to check if it passes.
I'm not sure how to dry run test of deploying the view-transitions plugin as you mentioned.