Github Actions Skill

GitHub Actions

Expert guidance for building CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions.

Quick Start Workflow

# .github/workflows/ci.yml
name: CI

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

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Set up Python
        uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: "3.12"

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: |
          python -m pip install --upgrade pip
          pip install -e ".[dev]"

      - name: Run tests
        run: pytest --cov=src --cov-report=xml

      - name: Upload coverage
        uses: codecov/codecov-action@v4
        with:
          files: ./coverage.xml

Common Triggers

on:
  push:
    branches: [main, develop]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 0 * * *"  # Daily at midnight
  workflow_dispatch:      # Manual trigger
  release:
    types: [published]

Matrix Testing

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
    strategy:
      matrix:
        os: [ubuntu-latest, windows-latest, macos-latest]
        python-version: ["3.10", "3.11", "3.12"]

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: ${{ matrix.python-version }}
      - run: pytest

Using Secrets

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Deploy to production
        env:
          API_KEY: ${{ secrets.API_KEY }}
          DATABASE_URL: ${{ secrets.DATABASE_URL }}
        run: ./deploy.sh

Workflow Structure

.github/
└── workflows/
    ├── ci.yml           # Test on every push/PR
    ├── cd.yml           # Deploy on release
    ├── docker.yml       # Build and push images
    └── scheduled.yml    # Cron jobs

Reference Guides

For detailed patterns, see:

• Workflow Syntax: See references/workflow-syntax.md for triggers, jobs, steps, and expressions
• CI Pipelines: See references/ci-pipelines.md for testing, linting, and coverage
• Matrix Strategies: See references/matrix-strategies.md for multi-version and multi-platform testing
• Secrets & Env: See references/secrets-env.md for secure configuration
• Docker Workflows: See references/docker-workflows.md for building and pushing images
• Deployment: See references/deployment-automation.md for cloud deployments