Automating CI with GitHub Actions

Procedures / github-actions-ci.html

A procedure to set up a basic CI workflow that runs tests on every push.

💬 Running checks on every push keeps broken code from being merged.

Before you start

• You need push access to the repository.
• Your test command must pass locally first.

Procedure

# 1) create the workflow folder
mkdir -p .github/workflows

# 2) after writing the file
git add .github/workflows/ci.yml
git commit -m "ci: add CI workflow"
git push

Example workflow (Node.js)

name: CI
on: [push, pull_request]
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with: { node-version: 20, cache: npm }
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test

Check the result

• Open the repository's Actions tab to see pass/fail per run.
• Expand a failed step to read its log.

When it fails

• npm ci fails: make sure package-lock.json is committed.
• Only tests fail: reproduce by running the last command locally.

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