Getting Started with GitHub Actions: Automate Your Development Workflow

Introduction to GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions is a popular Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) platform which automates the software development lifecycle. It allows the use of pre-configured and custom workflows that allows developers to build, scan, test and deploy applications to multiple platforms with a large capabilities, integrations and open-source community support.

Key Concepts

• Workflow - A workflow is a collection of jobs located at .github/workflows directory in the repository written in YAML format. A repository may have several independent or interconnected workflows.
• Jobs - Job is a set of steps that used to accomplish a specific task. A single workflow can have multiple Jobs.
• Steps - Steps contain a set of instructions to execute a specific task. These instructions can be Linux or Powershell commands.
• Actions - An Action is a pre-configured or custom application which is used in Steps. Actions used to minimize repetitive tasks.
• Runners - The Runner is the instance where GitHub Action is running. It can be a GitHub provided (Linux, Windows or MacOS) or Self-Hosted private runner.

Common Use Cases

GitHub Actions allows running tests, linters and integrating 3rd party tools like code scanners, code reviews to optimize Continuous Integration and Deployment process. The automated process allows us to build packages, store them and deploy to multiple platforms like Cloud computing. Not only for coding but also it helps for automation of most of the operational and repetitive tasks which helps organizations improve productivity, save time, cost and avoid human errors. GitHub Actions can be integrated with most popular tools like Slack/Teams for real time alerts and email notifications.

Trigger Events in GitHub Actions

There are several events that can trigger a GitHub Action. Some of them have mentioned here

1. Push event - Trigger the workflow when push code or every commit to master branch from a feature branch.
2. Dependent workflows - Trigger a workflow from another workflow.
3. Issues and releases - Trigger workflows based on the status of GitHub issues and new release of the application.
4. Periodic - Run a GitHub Action workflow periodically on a scheduled time.
5. Manual - Run a GitHub Action workflow manually when necessary.

GitHub Actions Best Practices

Reusable workflows save the time for developing, configuring and maintaining workflows. We can use GitHub secrets to store secrets and securely use them in Actions. Parallel execution of multiple jobs saves the time and cost for workflow running. Pre-configured GitHub Actions in the Market Place have advanced features with extensions and integration that made the configuration of workflows easy.

As a Summary

GitHub Actions is a powerful automation tool that integrates into GitHub repositories, enabling users to build, test, and deploy code effortlessly. This blog dives into the essentials of GitHub Actions, covering its core concepts like workflows, jobs, steps, and runners and this guide will equip you with practical tips, and best practices to boost productivity and streamline your development workflow.