To follow along with this article series, make sure you have:<\/p>\n\n\n
- \n
- Installed git<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Installed VS Code<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Created a GitHub account<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
After installing git, be sure to configure your account. Fill in the correct information and run in command line<\/p>\n\n\n\n
git config \u2013global user.email \"your_email.com\u201d\n\ngit config --global user.name \"your_name\"<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Which will looks similar to this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/word-image-105839-1.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Image 1: Adding global configuration to local git<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Create a GitHub repository<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Follow these steps to create a GitHub repo.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n- \n
- On GitHub.com<\/a>, log in and click the + icon.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
- \n
- Select New Repository<\/strong>.
![](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/word-image-105839-2.png\")
Image 2: New GitHub repository<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n- \n
- Type in a name for the repo (My example will use the name \u201c
GitHubActionsExample<\/code>\u201d)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n- \n
- Leave security at
Public<\/code>![](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/word-image-105839-3.png\")
Image 3: New GitHub repository settings<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n- \n
- Click Create repository at the bottom of the page
![](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/word-image-105839-4.png\")
Image 4: Create the repo<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n
\n- \n
- GitHub will display some options about connecting to your local git repository.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Connect the online repository to a local repository<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Follow these steps to pull the repository to the local computer:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n- \n
- Create a folder for your projects<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Create a folder for this specific project<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Open a command line and navigate to the new folder<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- In GitHub, copy the code provided to create a local repo
echo \"# GitHubActionsExample\" >> README.md
git init
git add README.md
git commit -m \"first commit\"
git branch -M main
git remote add origin https:\/\/github.com\/<your repo name>\/GithubActionsExample.git
git push - u origin main<\/code>
<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n- \n
- Paste the code into the command line window (Note that you may be required to authenticate with GitHub)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/word-image-105839-6.png\")
Image 5: Running the code to connect the repo<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/a>GitHub Actions structure<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Automating a deployment \u2013 or anything you wish to automate \u2013 is accomplished by Workflows<\/em> in GitHub Actions. For those of you who love working in code, there is no user interface. Workflow files are yaml.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Creating a new GitHub Actions file is simple. Within the repository, create this folder structure:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
.github\/workflows<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/word-image-105839-7.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Image 6: GitHub Actions file structure<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Any
yaml<\/code> file located in the workflows folder is automatically a GitHub Actions Workflow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a>Hello, world!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
This article series will cover how to create these files, but of course, the first thing to learn when code is involved is printing a \u201cHello, world!\u201d message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Open VS Code and create a new file. Save it in the new
.github\\workflows<\/code> folder with ayaml<\/code> oryml<\/code> extension. Code for this article can be found here<\/a>. Add this code:<\/p>\n\n\n\nname: Hello, World\n \n# Controls when the workflow will run, in this case manually\non: workflow_dispatch\njobs:\n PrintHelloWorld:\n name: Print Hello, World!\n runs-on: ubuntu-latest\n steps: \n - run: echo \"Hello, World!\"<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
This should result in the following output:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/word-image-105839-8.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Image 7: The \u201cHello, World!\u201dcode in VS Code<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Note that white space is critical in yaml. VS Code can help with this, but I find not getting it right is the source of most of the errors I make with yaml.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Save the file. Push to the online repo by typing this into the cmd window, with the project directory base directory in focus:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
git add .\ngit commit -m\"Add a new workflow file\"\ngit push <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
You should get output similar to the following. (note, the first statement does not have any output.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/word-image-105839-9.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Image 8: Push the code to the online repo<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
If all went well, you should see the workflow in GitHub Actions in the Actions tab. The names of any workflows are listed on the left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/word-image-105839-10.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Image 9: The published workflow<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
To run the code, click Run workflow<\/strong> \u2192 Run workflow<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Within a few seconds, you should see the Workflow in progress:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/word-image-105839-11.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Image 10: The workflow is running<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
- GitHub will display some options about connecting to your local git repository.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
- Click Create repository at the bottom of the page
- Leave security at
- Type in a name for the repo (My example will use the name \u201c
- Select New Repository<\/strong>.
- Installed VS Code<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/word-image-105839-12.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/word-image-105839-13.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n