GH-200: Automate your workflow with GitHub Actions

GH-200 Course: Automate your workflow with GitHub Actions

Discover how GitHub Actions enables you to automate your software development lifecycle. In the GH-300: GitHub Copilot course, you will learn how to plan the automation of your software development lifecycle with GitHub Actions workflows, use GitHub Actions to automatically build an application, and use GitHub Script to interact with the GitHub API.

Course aimed at

This course is aimed at students who want to use GitHub to help developers and DevOps engineers rapidly build and deploy applications. In addition, they will discover which GitHub Actions features are available for their enterprise instance and learn how to use them.

• Software developers looking to automate repetitive tasks and improve development efficiency.
• DevOps engineers interested in integrating GitHub Actions into their CI/CD pipelines.
• IT administrators who manage development and deployment environments.
• Students or professionals with intermediate GitHub experience who wish to delve deeper into workflow automation.

Course objectives

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Plan software development lifecycle automation using GitHub Actions workflows.
  
• Automatically build applications using GitHub Actions.
  
• Interact with the GitHub API using GitHub Script.
  
• Automatically and securely publish code and containers with GitHub Packages.

GH-200 training elements

• Automating workflow with GitHub Actions, part 1 of 2 (4 modules)
• Automating workflow with GitHub Actions, part 2 of 2 (3 modules)
  

GH-200 Course Content

Module 1: Automate development tasks by using GitHub Actions

By the end of this unit, you'll be able to:

• Identify GitHub Action types and where to find them 
  
• Break down the components of a workflow YAML file 
  
• Design CI/CD and IaC automation strategies 
  
• Build and trigger a custom container action on push
  

Module Units

• Introduction
  
• How does GitHub Actions automate development tasks?
  
• Identify the components of GitHub Actions
  
• Configure a GitHub Actions workflow
  
• Exercise - Create and run a basic GitHub Actions workflow
  
• Module assessment
• Summary
  

Module 2:  Build continuous integration (CI) workflows by using GitHub Actions 

By the end of this unit, you'll be able to:

• Build and test a Node.js project by using GitHub Actions and a templated workflow.
  
• Debug a failed test using the GitHub Actions Log.
  
• Customize your workflow with GitHub Actions.
  

Module Units

• Introduction1 min
  
• How do I use GitHub Actions to create workflows for CI?
  
• Customize your workflow with environment variables and artifact data
  
• Exercise - Create the CI workflow on GitHub
  
• Module assessment
  
• Summary

Module 3: Build and deploy applications to Azure by using GitHub Actions

By the end of this unit, you'll be able to:

• Discover options for triggering a continuous delivery GitHub Workflow.
  
• Understand steps to remove workflow artifacts.
  
• Identify important environment protections.
  
• Control workflow execution with job conditionals.
  
• Deploy to Microsoft Azure with a GitHub deploy action.
  
• Store credentials with GitHub Secrets.
  
• Create and destroy Azure resources with GitHub Actions workflows.
  

Module Units

• Introduction
• How do I use GitHub Actions to deploy to Azure?
• Remove artifacts, create status badges, and configure environment protections
• Exercise - Create a workflow that deploys a web app to Azure
• Module assessment
• Summary
  

Module 4: Automate GitHub by using GitHub Script

By the end of this unit, you'll be able to:

• Use GitHub Script in your workflow.
  
• Comment on issues by using Octokit.
  
• Add issues to a project board by using Octokit.
  
• Use the workflow expression syntax to filter when jobs run in a workflow.

Module Units

• Introduction
• What is GitHub Script?
• Exercise - Using GitHub Script in GitHub Actions
• Module assessment
• Summary
  

Module 5: Leverage GitHub Actions to publish to GitHub Packages

By the end of this unit, you'll be able to:

• Understand what a Package Repository is and when to use it.
  
• Set up a Continuous Integration (CI) workflow with GitHub Actions to publish to
• GitHub Packages.
  
• Validate your knowledge with an exercise that checks your ability to publish to a
• GitHub Packages registry.
  
• Identify how to authenticate, install, and manage GitHub Packages.
  

Module Units

• Introduction
  
• What is GitHub Packages?
  
• Publish to GitHub Packages and GitHub Container Registry
  
• Knowledge check
  
• Exercise - Publish to a GitHub Packages registry
  
• GitHub Packages for code packages
  
• Module assessment
  
• Summary
  

Module 6: Create and publish custom GitHub actions

By the end of this unit, you'll be able to:

• Identify the metadata and syntax needed to create custom GitHub actions.
  
• Learn best practices to publish a private or public GitHub action.
  
• Consume actions within a workflow file.
  
• Create custom JavaScript based actions.
  
• Publish a newly created action to the GitHub Marketplace

Module Units

• Introduction
  
• Create a custom GitHub action
  
• Publish a custom GitHub action
  
• Exercise - Create a custom JavaScript GitHub action
  
• Module assessment
  
• Summary

Module 7: Manage GitHub Actions in the enterprise

By the end of this unit, you'll be able to:

• Identify the different tools you can use at enterprise and organization levels to manage your actions and workflows.
  
• Evaluate what the appropriate runners are for your enterprise instance.
  
• Discover the different configurations available for self-hosted runners and customize them according to your enterprise use case.
  
• Understand what encrypted secrets are and how to use them in your actions and workflows.
  

Module Units

• Introduction
  
• Understanding GitHub enterprise models
  
• Manage actions and workflows
  
• Control access and usage of actions in your enterprise
  
• Managing and leveraging reusable components in GitHub Actions
  
• Manage runners
  
• Configure self-hosted runners for enterprise use
  
• Manage encrypted secrets
  
• Exercise - Use a repository secret in a GitHub Actions workflow
  
• Module assessment
  
• Summary
  

Prerequisites

Students should have:

• Basic experience with GitHub, including: creating and managing repositories; and understanding concepts such as commits, branches, and pull requests.
• General knowledge of the software development lifecycle.
• Familiarity with automation or continuous integration (CI/CD) tools is useful, but not mandatory.

This course is classified as intermediate level, so it is intended for people who have already worked with GitHub and wish to delve deeper into workflow automation using GitHub Actions.

Language

• Course: English

• Labs: English

Associated Microsoft Certification: GitHub Actions

Microsoft Certified: GitHub Actions

This exam is designed for DevOps engineers, software developers, and IT professionals with intermediate level experience in GitHub Actions, including creating workflows, automation, and managing CI/CD pipelines.

Level: Intermediate
Role: Administrator, Developer, DevOps Engineer, Solutions Architect, Student
Product: Digital and App Innovation - GitHub
Subject: DevOps