An Introduction to CI/CD with GitHub Actions

In today’s fast-paced software development world, adopting Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) practices is crucial for maintaining agility and delivering quality software. This week, I started my journey to understand GitHub Actions, a tool that simplifies and automates CI/CD workflows. While this newsletter covers the basics, future editions will delve deeper into more advanced topics and practical examples.

GitHub Actions are scripts that automate tasks in software development workflows. By triggering workflows based on events like code commits or manual inputs, they help developers save time, reduce errors, and maintain efficiency.

Getting Started with GitHub Actions

Types of GitHub Actions:

1?? Container Action:

• Runs exclusively on Linux environments.
• Includes its own environment setup.

2?? JavaScript Action:

• Specifies the environment for execution.
• Works on Linux, macOS, or Windows (both cloud and on-premises).

3?? Composite Action:

• Groups multiple steps into a single reusable action.

What is a GitHub Actions Workflow?

A workflow is an automated process defined in a repository. Workflows allow you to build, test, deploy, or perform other tasks, written in YAML files stored under .github/workflows/.

Core Components of GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions consists of several key components that work together to automate tasks and streamline development processes. Here's an overview of these components:

1?? Workflows:

• Automated sequences of tasks triggered by events like pull requests or commits.
• Defined in YAML files located in the .github/workflows/ directory.
• Can include one or more jobs and support conditional triggers.

2?? Jobs:

• A job represents a set of steps that are executed in sequence or in parallel.
• Each job is associated with a specific runner environment, specified using the runs-on attribute.

3?? Steps:

• Individual tasks within a job.
• Each step can execute a shell command or call an action.
• Steps are defined sequentially to outline the workflow’s execution

4?? Actions:

• Reusable modular commands executed within workflows.
• Actions can be:

1. Created by you for specific needs.

2. Community-contributed and available on GitHub Marketplace.

3. Built-in actions provided by GitHub.

5?? Events:

• Events are triggers that initiate workflows, such as a push, pull_request, or schedule event.
• They determine when and how workflows start.

6?? Runners:

• Runners are servers that execute the jobs in a workflow.
• GitHub provides hosted runners with pre-configured environments, or you can set up self-hosted runners.

Looking Ahead

This introductory exploration into GitHub Actions has laid a solid foundation. As I continue this learning journey, I plan to dive deeper into topics like creating custom actions, using advanced features, and optimizing workflows for real-world scenarios. Stay tuned for future newsletters where we’ll bring these concepts to life with hands-on examples and practical use cases.

Let’s simplify and innovate our development processes together! ??