PipeIt: Automated CI/CD Pipeline with GitHub Actions

A production-inspired CI/CD implementation using GitHub Actions, a custom composite action, automated testing, and GitHub Pages deployment.

Live Website: https://rahimahisah17.github.io/pipeit-tutorial/

Project Overview

This project demonstrates an automated CI/CD pipeline that validates code, builds a website using a custom GitHub Action, and deploys the generated website to GitHub Pages.

Every push to the main branch triggers the pipeline automatically. A scheduled workflow also rebuilds the website daily.

How It Works

The pipeline consists of three sequential jobs:

1. Test: Checks the README file for a valid Markdown heading.
2. Build: Executes a reusable custom GitHub Action to generate a website containing the run number, commit ID, build timestamp, and workflow trigger.
3. Deploy: Publishes the generated website through GitHub Pages.

The pipeline only proceeds when the preceding job succeeds.

Repository Structure

pipeit-tutorial/
├── .github/
│   ├── actions/
│   │   └── build-card/
│   │       └── action.yml
│   └── workflows/
│       ├── hello.yml
│       ├── ci.yml
│       └── pipeline.yml
├── tests/
│   └── check.sh
├── README.md

Key Technologies

• GitHub Actions
• YAML
• Bash
• Git and GitHub
• GitHub Pages
• Composite Actions
• Continuous Integration (CI)
• Continuous Delivery (CD)

Custom GitHub Action

The build-card composite action accepts a name and an optional message.

It generates site/index.html and writes a build summary directly to the GitHub Actions run page.

This demonstrates how reusable custom actions can simplify workflow automation.

Automation Features

• Automated testing on code changes.
• Custom website generation.
• Automated GitHub Pages deployment.
• Scheduled daily builds.
• Manual workflow execution.
• Build metadata and execution summaries.

What This Project Demonstrates

• Designing multi-job CI/CD workflows.
• Implementing reusable composite GitHub Actions.
• Managing workflow dependencies with needs.
• Using GitHub Actions permissions securely.
• Generating and publishing static websites.
• Troubleshooting workflow failures through execution logs.
• Automating deployments without manual intervention.

Potential Improvements

• Add additional application and deployment tests.
• Introduce branch protection and pull request validation.
• Extend the pipeline with deployment notifications.
• Add a second custom action for additional build tasks.

Author

Rahimah Sulayman

Cloud DevOps Engineer | Azure | Kubernetes | CI/CD

GitHub: https://github.com/rahimahisah17

Live Project: https://rahimahisah17.github.io/pipeit-tutorial/