GitHub Actions: Automate Your Workflow¶

GitHub Actions is a powerful continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform that allows you to automate, customize, and execute your software development workflows directly within your GitHub repository. You can build, test, and deploy your code whenever you push changes, open pull requests, or create releases. This tight integration streamlines development and reduces context switching.

What Is GitHub Actions?¶

• Workflows: Defined in YAML files under .github/workflows/, workflows consist of one or more jobs that run on specified events (e.g., push, pull_request, schedule).
• Jobs and Steps: Each workflow contains jobs, which are units of work that execute on a runner. Jobs consist of steps, which can run shell commands or reuse existing Actions from the Marketplace.
• Actions: Reusable commands or scripts packaged into standalone units. You can find thousands of official and community-maintained Actions in the GitHub Marketplace, or write your own.

Key Concepts¶

1. Events & Triggers
   Define when a workflow runs (e.g., on push, pull_request, or custom events).

2. Runners
   Virtual machines (Linux, Windows, macOS) or self-hosted machines where your jobs execute.

3. Marketplace
   Discover and integrate actions for tasks like setting up environments, testing, linting, and deployment.

Common Use Cases¶

• Continuous Integration: Automatically build and test every commit and pull request.
• Continuous Deployment: Deploy successful builds to staging or production environments.
• Infrastructure Automation: Provision or configure cloud resources via Infrastructure-as-Code tools.
• Workflow Orchestration: Automate issue labeling, triage, notifications, and more.

Getting Started¶

1. Create a directory .github/workflows/ in your repository.
2. Add a workflow file (e.g., ci.yml) with a trigger, job definitions, and steps.
3. Commit and push to GitHub—your workflow will automatically run and appear in the Actions tab.
4. Monitor workflow runs and view logs directly in GitHub to debug and iterate.

Sample code:¶

name: Deploy MkDocs to GitHub Pages

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main  # trigger on pushes to main

permissions:
  contents: write    # push to repo
  pages: write       # update GitHub Pages
  id-token: write    # support Pages token flow

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v3                             # pull down your repo :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}

      - name: Set up Python
        uses: actions/setup-python@v4                         # install Python for mkdocs :contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4}
        with:
          python-version: '3.x'

      - name: Install MkDocs & plugins
        run: pip install mkdocs-material mkdocs-jupyter       # get mkdocs and jupyter support :contentReference[oaicite:5]{index=5}

      - name: Build site
        run: mkdocs build --clean                              # render markdown into ./site/ :contentReference[oaicite:6]{index=6}

      - name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
        uses: peaceiris/actions-gh-pages@v4                   # deploy your ./site/ to gh-pages branch :contentReference[oaicite:7]{index=7}
        with:
          github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          publish_dir: ./site
          publish_branch: gh-pages                           # explicitly push to gh-pages :contentReference[oaicite:8]{index=8}

For detailed documentation and examples, explore the GitHub Actions docs.

This guide provides an overview of GitHub Actions and practical steps to start automating your software workflows.