Setting Up CI/CD with GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions makes it easy to automate your software workflows. Let's set up a complete CI/CD pipeline.

What is CI/CD?

CI (Continuous Integration): Automatically build and test code changes

CD (Continuous Deployment): Automatically deploy to production

Basic Workflow Structure

YAML

name: CI/CD Pipeline

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Run tests
        run: npm test

Complete Example for Node.js

YAML

name: Node.js CI/CD

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    
    strategy:
      matrix:
        node-version: [18.x, 20.x]
    
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      
      - name: Use Node.js ${{ matrix.node-version }}
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
          cache: 'npm'
      
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run build --if-present
      - run: npm test

  deploy:
    needs: test
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      
      - name: Deploy to production
        run: |
          echo "Deploying to production..."
          # Add your deployment commands here

Using Secrets

YAML

steps:
  - name: Deploy
    env:
      API_KEY: ${{ secrets.API_KEY }}
    run: ./deploy.sh

Caching Dependencies

YAML

- name: Cache node modules
  uses: actions/cache@v3
  with:
    path: ~/.npm
    key: ${{ runner.os }}-node-${{ hashFiles('**/package-lock.json') }}

Docker Build and Push

YAML

- name: Build and push Docker image
  uses: docker/build-push-action@v5
  with:
    push: true
    tags: myapp:latest

Best Practices

1. Keep workflows fast - Parallelize jobs when possible

2. Use caching - Speed up dependency installation

3. Fail fast - Put quick checks first

4. Use environments - Separate staging and production

Conclusion

GitHub Actions provides a powerful, flexible platform for automating your development workflow. Start simple and expand as needed.

CI/CD

GitHub Actions

DevOps

Automation