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What do you know about CI CD? Have you used Github Actions to build a CI CD pipeline? What is GitHub Actions? Why should you use Actions? When do you use Actions?

In the following guide, I will describe the steps by steps to build a CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions.

Background

CI CD refers to Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment. A CI/CD pipeline is the process of building, testing, and deploying code in a SDLC. A CI pipeline runs when code changes, it compiles your code, run tests, and check that it’s functional. A CD pipeline deploys the built code into production. Github Actions is a CI/CD tool that gives you the ability to implement powerful automations right in your repositories.

Prerequisites

• A Github account, if you don’t have an account get one here for free.

Now let’s have fun building your CI CD pipeline using Github Actions.

First step: Create a repository or select an existing repo, and a project

• Create or select a repository on GitHub to build a CI pipeline with GitHub Actions.

Cheat Sheet: you can either use an existing project code base, fork a project you like on GitHub (see screenshot below), or start from scratch (see screenshot above).

• For this guide I decided to fork this Open Sauced repository.

Cheat Sheet: A fork is a copy of a repository. Forking a repository allows you to freely experiment with changes without affecting the original project.

Second Step : Open GitHub Actions in your repository to start building your CI/CD workflow

• Go to your repository’s top navigation bar.
• Open the GitHub Actions tab

• From a list of CI/CD and workflow automation templates click on New workflow (see screenshot below) or select one in All workflows list (see screenshot above).

• Remember we forked an existing repository for this exercise. Go back to the repo and click on workflow. You are able to see all the existing workflows.

Cheat Sheet: building a CI pipeline can be a simple process. You can use your workflow and move quickly, or it can be more complex when building a big enterprise software.

Third Step: Change your code to trigger your CI/CD pipeline

• For the easy route, you will use compliance workflow or compliance.yml.
• Open it and read through, you will see this workflow is triggered whenever someone makes their first pull request and sends a message to the owner for approval.

• Now it’s time to change the code in compliance workflow to trigger your CI CD pipeline.
• Check compliance.yaml, focus on the part of the code below:

• Add “IMPORTANT” on top of this part and start commit.

• Choose to attach the change to the main branch or create a new branch, then commit changes.

Forth Step: Check your pipeline

• Now look at the workflow visualizer and live logs.
• Go back to all workflows, and click on the one you just updated. In our case it’s update compliance.yaml

Cheat Sheet: In the visualizer, it’s important to see which job in the workflow works (green check mark), fails (red sign) and if something is in progress (a yellow sign).

Cheat Sheet: These logs and the timestamps are very useful if you’re debugging a time-sensitive error. A live log makes it possible to immediately address the problem.

Voilà! You have your guide to build a CI/CD pipeline using GitHub Actions.

Thank you for reading and/or following along! Please stay tuned for all my upcoming projects, labs and feel free to check out the rest of my articles.