GitHub Actions: First Workflow to Production

GitHub Actions is the most-used CI/CD platform (700M+ workflow runs/month). It’s built into GitHub — no setup server needed.

Your first workflow

Create .github/workflows/ci.yml:

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
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test

That’s it. Push to GitHub → CI runs on every commit.

Common patterns

Matrix builds

strategy:
  matrix:
    node: [18, 20, 22]
    os: [ubuntu-latest, macos-latest, windows-latest]

Secrets

env:
  API_KEY: ${{ secrets.API_KEY }}

Caching

- uses: actions/cache@v4
  with:
    path: ~/.npm
    key: ${{ runner.os }}-node-${{ hashFiles('**/package-lock.json') }}

Deploy on tag

on:
  push:
    tags: ['v*']
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npm ci && npm run build
      - run: vercel deploy --prod --token=${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}

Reusable workflows

.github/workflows/deploy.yml:

on: workflow_call
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: ./deploy.sh

Other workflows can call this:

jobs:
  deploy:
    uses: ./.github/workflows/deploy.yml

Key takeaways

• .github/workflows/*.yml for each workflow
• ${{ secrets.X }} for secrets
• ${{ matrix.X }} for matrix builds
• 700M+ runs/month — it’s the de facto standard