GitHub Actions — Advanced Workflows

DevOps Intermediate

GitHub Actions — Advanced Workflows¶

GitHub ActionsCI/CDAutomation 6 min read

Advanced GitHub Actions techniques: matrix builds, reusable workflows, composite actions and self-hosted runners.

Matrix Builds¶

The matrix strategy enables parallel test runs across versions and platforms.

jobs:
  test:
    strategy:
      matrix:
        node: [18, 20, 22]
        os: [ubuntu-latest, macos-latest]
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ matrix.node }}
      - run: npm ci && npm test

Reusable Workflows¶

Sharing workflows across repositories eliminates duplication. Define a workflow in a central repo and call it via workflow_call.

on:
  workflow_call:
    inputs:
      environment:
        required: true
        type: string
    secrets:
      DEPLOY_KEY:
        required: true

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: ${{ inputs.environment }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: ./deploy.sh
        env:
          KEY: ${{ secrets.DEPLOY_KEY }}

Composite Actions¶

Composite actions combine multiple steps into a single reusable action with custom inputs and outputs.

name: Build and Push
inputs:
  image:
    required: true
runs:
  using: composite
  steps:
    - run: docker build -t ${{ inputs.image }} .
      shell: bash
    - run: docker push ${{ inputs.image }}
      shell: bash

Self-hosted Runners¶

For specific hardware requirements or private networks, deploy your own runner. Use actions-runner-controller for Kubernetes-native scaling.

apiVersion: actions.summerwind.dev/v1alpha1
kind: RunnerDeployment
metadata:
  name: k8s-runners
spec:
  replicas: 3
  template:
    spec:
      repository: org/repo
      labels:
        - self-hosted
        - linux

Summary¶

GitHub Actions is an extremely flexible CI/CD platform. Matrix builds, reusable workflows and composite actions dramatically reduce duplication and speed up the feedback loop.

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