Hands-on GitHub Actions

Implement continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) workflows for any application you develop through GitHub Actions. This book will give you an in-depth idea of implementation patterns, solutions for different technology builds, guidelines to implement your own custom components as actions, and usage of features available with GitHub Actions workflows, to set up CI/CD for your repositories.

Hands-on GitHub Actions starts with an introduction to GitHub actions that gives an overview on CI/CD followed by an introduction to its workflows. Next, you will learn how to use variables in a GitHub workflow along with tokens via a REST API. Further, you will explore artifacts and caching dependencies in GitHub and use artifacts in subsequent jobs. Using self-hosted runners is discussed next where you will set up your own hardware and software to run GitHub actions. You will go through publishing packages and migrate to Azure DevOps Pipelines. Along the way, you will use Redis service and PostgreSQL service containers and create custom actions. Finally, you will work with GitHub apps and understand the syntax reference for GitHub Actions and workflows.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

* Create workflows for any platform and any language with GitHub Actions
* Develop custom GitHub actions to enhance features and usage of database and service containers
Use hosted runners and create self-hosted runners for GitHub workflows * Use GitHub Package registry with GitHub Actions to share and use packages



WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

DevOps teams who want to build quality CI/CD workflows.

CHAMINDA CHANDRASEKARA is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for Visual Studio ALM and Scrum Alliance Certified ScrumMaster®, and focuses on and believes in continuous improvement of the software development life cycle. He is the Cloud Development and DevOps Architect at eKriegers (Pvt) Ltd. Chaminda is an active Microsoft Community Contributor (MCC) who is well recognized for his contributions in Microsoft forums, TechNet galleries, wikis, and Stack Overflow and he contributes extensions to Azure DevOps Server and Services (former VSTS/TFS) in the Microsoft Visual Studio Marketplace. He also contributes to other open source projects in GitHub. Chaminda has published six books with Apress.

PUSHPA HERATH is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) working as a Senior DevOps Engineer at 99x. She has many years of experience in Azure DevOps Server and Services (formerly VSTS/TFS), Azure cloud platform and QA Automation. She is an expert in DevOps currently leading Sri Lanka DevOps community, and she has shown in depth knowledge in Azure cloud platform tools in her community activities. She has published four books with Apress and spoken in community evets as well as in the youtube channel of her Sri Lanka DevOps community. Pushpa blogs on technology at DevOps Adventure.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO GITHUB ACTIONS

CHAPTER GOAL: Give conceptual overview on CI CD while elaborating on the need of software delivery automation and basic concepts of GitHub Actions.

NO OF PAGES: 15

SUB -TOPICS

1. Introducing Concepts (CI/CD)

2. Why we need SW Delivery Automation?

3. What are GitHub Actions?

4. Identifying core concepts in GitHub Actions

5. GitHub hosted runners.

CHAPTER 2: GETTING STARTED WITH GITHUB ACTIONS WORKFLOWS

CHAPTER GOAL: Introduction to GitHub Actions workflows.

NO OF PAGES: 25

SUB - TOPICS

1. Using preconfigured workflow templates

2. Using Marketplace Actions to create workflows

3. Building a .NET Core Web App with GitHub Actions

4. Understanding the structure of a Workflow (jobs, actions, set job dependencies etc.)

5. Setting up continuous integration using GitHub actions

CHAPTER 3: VARIABLES AND SECRETS WITH GITHUB ACTIONS

CHAPTER GOAL: Lessons to provide hands-on guidance using variables and secrets in a GitHib workflow.

NO OF PAGES : 15

SUB - TOPICS:

1. Defining and using variables

2. Understanding the default variables usage

3. Naming conventions for variables

4. Defining and using secrets

CHAPTER 4: USING TOKENS

CHAPTER GOAL: Understanding the use of system token and the personal access tokens to work with GitHub repos and issues via the REST API in GitHub Actions workflow.

NO OF PAGES: 15

SUB - TOPICS:

1. Using GITHUB_TOKEN

2. Creating a Personal Access Token

3. Using Personal Access Token in workflow

CHAPTER 5: ARTIFACTS AND CACHING DEPENDENCIES

NO OF PAGES: 20

SUB - TOPICS:

1. Storing content in Artifacts

2. Using artifacts in subsequent jobs

3. Uploading to external artifact store and using them in other workflows

4. Deleting artifacts

5. Caching workflow dependencies (compare caching and artifacts, using cache action and matching cache keys)

6. Limitations and eviction policy in caching

CHAPTER 6: USING SELF-HOSTED RUNNERS

CHAPTER GOAL: Setting up your own hardware and software to run GitHub actions..

NO OF PAGES: 30

SUB - TOPICS:

1. Understanding self-hosted runners

2. Configuring and adding/removing self-hosted runners GitHub.

3. Self-hosted runners with proxy

4. Using labels to organize self-hosted runners

5. Using self-hosted runners in workflows

6. Monitoring and access control for self-hosted runners

CHAPTER 7: PUBLISHING PACKAGES AND MIGRATING FROM AZURE DEVOPS PIPELINES

CHAPTER GOAL: How to create and publish packages in GitHub actions and migrating pipelines from Azure DevOps pipelines.

NO OF PAGES: 20

SUB - TOPICS:

1. Creating and publishing build artifacts as nuget

2. Using custom packages in workflows

3. Using GitHub Packages

4. Migrating Azure Pipelines

CHAPTER 8: USING DATABASE AND SERVICE CONTAINERS

CHAPTER GOAL: Hands on lessons on using Redis service containers and PostgreSQL service containers.

NO OF PAGES: 20

SUB - TOPICS:

1. Running Redis jobs on containers

2. Running Redis jobs on runner machine

3. Using Redis service container

4. Running PostgreSQL jobs on containers

5. Running PostgreSQL jobs on runner machine

6. Using PostgreSQL service container

CHAPTER 9: CREATING CUSTOM ACTIONS

CHAPTER GOAL: Step by step guidance to create your own GitHub actions.

NO OF PAGES: 20

SUB - TOPICS:

1. Understanding action types

2. Steps to create a simple action

3. Creating Docker container action

4. Publishing actions to marketplace

CHAPTER 10: GITHUB APPS

CHAPTER GOAL: Using and creating GitHub Apps in workflows.

NO OF PAGES: 30

SUB - TOPICS:

1. Understanding GitHub Actions and Apps

2. Creating GitHub Apps

3. Using GitHub Apps

CHAPTER 11: SYNTAX REFERENCE FOR GITHUB ACTIONS AND WORKFLOWS

CHAPTER GOAL: Syntax guide for GitHub Actions and Workflows.

NO OF PAGES: 15

SUB - TOPICS:

1. Understanding Workflow Syntax

2. Triggers for Workflows

3. Using context and expressions

4. Workflow commands