GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions is a CI/CD and workflow automation platform built directly into GitHub that allows defining automated pipelines triggered by repository events. Workflows are defined in YAML files stored in the repository, specifying jobs that run on GitHub-hosted or self-hosted runners in response to pushes, pull requests, releases, schedules, or manual triggers.

The platform supports matrix builds that test across multiple operating systems, language versions, and configurations in parallel. Reusable workflows and composite actions enable sharing automation logic across repositories. The GitHub Marketplace provides thousands of community-built actions for deploying to cloud providers, running security scans, publishing packages, and sending notifications.

For web development, GitHub Actions has become the default CI/CD choice for projects on GitHub because integration is seamless. A typical workflow runs linting, type checking, and tests on every pull request, builds and previews the application for review, and deploys to production on merge. The free tier provides generous minutes for public repositories. The combination of trigger flexibility, matrix testing, caching, and the action marketplace makes it possible to automate virtually any development workflow.