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GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions

What are GitHub Actions?

GitHub Actions is a CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) service provided by GitHub that allows you to automate workflows. It enables you to build, test, deploy and much more directly from your GitHub repository. With GitHub Actions, you can create custom workflows that respond to various events in your repository, such as pushes, pull requests, or issues.

Why use GitHub Actions?

GitHub actions is often the first choice for CI/CD because it is tightly integrated with GitHub making it incredible easy and low friction to use.

Create a Workflow?

A workflow is a configurable automated process made up of one or more jobs. A workflow is defined in a specific directory /.github/workflows and each workflow is defined in a separate YAML file. The workflow file contains the following sections:

yaml 
name: My Workflow

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Set up Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: "20"

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm install

      - name: Build project
        run: npm run build

      - name: Test project
        run: npm test

      - name: Deploy to production
        if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
        run: npm run deploy

How to make a Workflow

Workflows are comprised of one or more jobs. Each job is a sequence of steps that are executed in a specific order. Jobs can run on different operating systems and can be configured to run on different events in your repository.

yaml 
# Trigger(s) here

# List all of the jobs here
jobs:
  # Job name
  test:
    # What OS to run the job on
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    # List each step in the job
    steps:
      # The name for the step, this will appear in the GUI on GitHub
      - name: Checkout code
        # The action to use, which refers to a GH repository
        # actions/checkout is a GitHub own action that is used to checkout the
        # code from the repository into the runner (current GH action)
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Setup Node
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        # Some actions can take in variables that alter the behavior/version
        with:
          node-version: "20"

      - name: Install dependencies
        # Steps can also take a `run` argument which will run a command on the
        # runner
        run: npm run install

      - name: Run tests
        run: npm run test

How to Trigger a Workflow

Workflows can be triggered (ran) by many events such as manually, on a schedule, or when a specific condition is met (pull request, tag, etc). Here is a couple examples of different triggers:

yaml 
# List the trigger events here
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
    tags:
      - v*.*.*
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - main
  workflow_dispatch:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 0 * * *"

# Job(s) here

Resources

GitHub Actions Page

GitHub Actions Workflow Syntax

GitHub Actions Marketplace

Pointers in Delphi Creating a Deep-link in Windows

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