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Adding CI/CD to Your Project

Adding CI/CD to Your Project#

Note

There are many tools available to create a CI/CD pipeline. This guide will demonstrate the use of GitHub Actions.

GitHub Actions#

Key Terms

Meaning

Workflows

Automated procedure that can be triggered by some event. Written in YAML.

Events

An activity that triggers a workflow to be executed. For example, pushes to main branch.

Jobs

Set of steps that execute on the same runner. Multiple jobs run in parallel.

Steps

Individual task that runs command within a job. Executes shell commands or actions. Multiple steps run sequentially.

Actions

Standalone commands that are combined into steps. There are actions published by the Github community which you can use as well.

Runner

The server that the workflows run within.

Create Your First Workflow#

  1. Create a directory from the root of your repository called .github/workflows.

  2. Create a new file for your workflow. You can name this anything, but it must be a YAML file. For example, ci-cd.yaml.

  3. Add the following example workflow and modify/add steps as required.

name**:** learn-github-actions\
on**:** **\[**push**\]**\
jobs**:**\
check-bats-version**:**\
runs-on**:** ubuntu-latest\
steps**:**\
**-** uses**:** actions/checkout@v2\
**-** uses**:** actions/setup-node@v2\
with**:**\
node-version**:** \'14\'\
**-** run**:** npm install -g bats\
**-** run**:** bats -v

The steps above were obtained from the GitHub Actions documentation.

Understanding the Workflow Syntax#

../_images/ci_cd_workflow.png

Viewing Your Workflow Execution#

Once your workflow is triggered, you should be able to see its execution under the Actions tab in your GitHub repository. If any step fails, GitHub will clearly indicate the step that failed and show any logs that can be useful to understand why it has failed.

Steps to Include in Your Pipeline#

  1. Build your application

    1. Install necessary dependencies

  2. Perform any formatting/linting checks

  3. Test your application

    1. Unit testing

    2. Integration testing

Extra Resources

To build your first project using GitHub Actions, you can take GitHub’s free course.

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