A Guide to Perform GitHub Actions and Create a Workflow

Introduction to GitHub

GitHub is a platform for online software development. It is used for software project storage, tracking, and collaboration.

Some of its significant features are as follows.

• Collaboration
• Integrated issue and bug tracking
• Track and assign tasks
• Wikisc
• Project management
• Team management
• Code hosting
• Graphical representation of branches
• Git repositories hosting
• Conversations

How does GitHub work?

GitHub is a platform for hosting code that allows for version control and collaboration. It allows you and others to collaborate on projects from anywhere. This tutorial will teach you the fundamentals of GitHub, such as repositories, branches, commits, and

The key benefits of GitHub are as follows.

• GitHub makes it simple to contribute to open-source projects.
• It contributes to the creation of an excellent document.
• You can impress a recruiter by displaying your work. You will have a better chance of being hired if you have a GitHub profile.
• It allows your work to be seen by the public.
• Changes in your code can be tracked across versions.

Introduction to GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions makes it simple to automate all your software workflows, and it now includes world-class CI/CD. Build, test, and deploy your code directly from GitHub. Make code reviews, branch management, and issue triaging work the way you want them to.

GitHub Actions extends beyond DevOps by allowing you to run workflows when other events occur in your repository. You can, for example, run a workflow that adds the appropriate labels whenever someone creates a new issue in your repository.

Components of GitHub Actions

Workflows

A workflow is a programmable automated process that executes one or more jobs. Workflows are defined by a YAML file that is checked into your repository and will run when triggered by an event in your repository, manually, or on a predefined schedule.

Events

An event is a specific activity in a repository that initiates the execution of a workflow. When someone creates a pull request, opens an issue, or pushes a commit to a repository, for example, activity can originate from GitHub. You can also run a workflow on a schedule,

Jobs

A job is a collection of workflow steps that run on the same runner. Each step is either a shell script to be executed or an action to be performed. Steps are carried out sequentially and are interdependent. Because each step is executed on the same runner, data can be shared from one step to the next. For example, you could have a step that builds your application followed by a step that tests the built application.

Actions

An action is a GitHub Actions platform custom application that performs a complex but frequently repeated task. Use actions to help you reduce the amount of repetitive code in your workflow files. An action can fetch your git repository from GitHub, install the necessary toolchain for your build environment, or configure your cloud provider authentication.

Runners

When your workflows are triggered, they are executed by a runner. Each runner can only run one job at a time. To run your workflows, GitHub provides Ubuntu Linux, Microsoft Windows, and macOS runners; each workflow run executes in a new, freshly provisioned virtual machine. GitHub also provides larger runners in a variety of configurations.

Steps to Perform GitHub Actions and Create a Workflow

Step 1 – Create a GitHub account and log in to it. Open the link given below:

https://github.com/skills/hello-github-actions

Click on use this template:

That will take you to create a new repository:

In the new tab, follow the prompts to create a new repository. Choose your personal account or an organization to host the repository for the owner.

Step 2 – Create a workflow file

1. Open a new browser tab and navigate to this same repository. Then, work on the steps in your second tab while you read the instructions in this tab.
2. Navigate to the Code tab.
3. From the main branch dropdown, click on the welcome-workflow branch.

4. Navigate to the .github/workflows/ folder, then select Add file and click on Create a new file.

5. In the Name your file… field, enter welcome.yml.

6. Add the following content to the welcome.yml file:

7. To commit your changes, click Commit new file.

Step 3 – In this step of our exercise, we will add a “build” job. We will specify ubuntu-latest as the fastest and cheapest job runner available.

1. Open the welcome.yml file and edit and paste the content

2. Click Start commit in the top right of the workflow editor.

3. Open the welcome.yml file and edit and paste the content

4. Click Start commit in the top right of the workflow editor.

5. In your repo, click on the Pull requests tab.

6. Click on the Post welcome comment workflow pull request.

7. Click Merge pull request, then Click Confirm merge.

Step 4 – Click on the delete branch to delete your welcome-workflow branch.

1. You can see all your commits and pull requests under the actions tab

2. Create a new branch named test-workflow. Then go to README.md and add Hello from CloudThat 🙂

3. Go to your pull requests tab and click on compare & pull request

4. Click on create a pull request

5. Click on the merge pull request

6. Go to actions to see the workflow runs and pull requests

Conclusion

The GitHub interface is simple enough that even inexperienced coders can use it. Without GitHub, using Git generally necessitates a bit more technical know-how and command-line GitHub Actions integrates the automation into the software development lifecycle on GitHub through event-driven triggers. These are predefined events that can range from creating a pull request to creating a new brand in a repository. You can use GitHub Actions to automate nearly every aspect of your application development processes.

About CloudThat

CloudThat is also the official AWS (Amazon Web Services) Advanced Consulting Partner and Training partner and Microsoft gold partner, helping people develop knowledge of the cloud and help their businesses aim for higher goals using best in industry cloud computing practices and expertise. We are on a mission to build a robust cloud computing ecosystem by disseminating knowledge on technological intricacies within the cloud space. Our blogs, webinars, case studies, and white papers enable all the stakeholders in the cloud computing sphere.

Drop a query if you have any questions regarding GitHub and I will get back to you quickly.

To get started, go through our Consultancy page and Managed Services Package that is CloudThat’s offerings.