Automating Deployments with GitHub Actions (CI/CD)

Manual deployments are risky. You forge to build assets, you forget to restart the server, you forget to run migration.

CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment) solves this.

The Structure

GitHub Actions live in .github/workflows/deploy.yml.

Example: Node.js CI Pipeline

This pipeline runs every time you Push or open a Pull Request.

name: Node.js CI

on:
  push:
    branches: [ "main" ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ "main" ]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    
    - name: Use Node.js 20
      uses: actions/setup-node@v4
      with:
        node-version: 20
        cache: 'npm'
        
    - run: npm ci
    - run: npm run build
    - run: npm test

Creating a CD Pipeline (Deployment)

To deploy via SSH, you need Secrets. Go to repo Settings -> Secrets and variables -> Actions. Add HOST, USERNAME, and SSH_KEY.

Then add a deploy step:

- name: Deploy to VPS
  uses: appleboy/ssh-action@master
  with:
    host: ${{ secrets.HOST }}
    username: ${{ secrets.USERNAME }}
    key: ${{ secrets.SSH_KEY }}
    script: |
      cd /var/www/myapp
      git pull
      npm install
      npm run build
      pm2 restart all

Why npm ci?

You noticed I used npm ci instead of npm install. ci stands for Clean Install. It deletes node_modules, reads the package-lock.json, and installs exact versions. It is faster and more reliable for CI environments.

Quiz

Conclusion

Automation buys you sleep. If the tests pass, the code deploys. If they fail, the deploy stops. No more "oops, I broke production on a Friday" moments.