I Built My Own CI/CD, and the Interesting Part Wasn't the CI
On replacing GitHub Actions with something that owns almost nothing — and why that turned out to be the whole point.
github-actions
34 posts tagged “github-actions”.
- 2026
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21 min read
- 2025
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Open a debugging shell in GitHub Actions with tmate
:warning: 17 Feb 2022: There have been reports of running tmate causing account suspensions . See this issue for details. Continue with caution.
1 min read -
Automatically maintaining Homebrew formulas using GitHub Actions
I previously wrote about Packaging a Python CLI tool for Homebrew. I've now figured out a pattern for automatically updating those formulas over time, using GitHub Actions.
3 min read -
actions/setup-python caching for setup.py projects
I used to use a combination of and in all of my Python GitHub Actions projects in order to install Python dependencies via a cache, rather than hitting PyPI to download copies every time.
1 min read -
Testing against Python 3.11 preview using GitHub Actions
I used the new GitHub Code Search to figure out how to do this. I searched for: 3.11 path:workflows/ .yml And found this example from which showed that the version tag to use is: 3.11-dev Update 28th…
1 min read -
Running tests against multiple versions of a Python dependency in GitHub Actions
My datasette-export-notebook plugin worked fine in the stable release of Datasette, currently version 0.64.3, but failed in the Datasette 1.0 alphas. Here's the issue describing the problem.
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Serving a JavaScript project built using Vite from GitHub Pages
I figured out how to serve a JavaScript project built using Vite using GitHub Pages and a custom build script that runs using GitHub Actions.
2 min read -
Ensure labels exist in a GitHub repository
I wanted to ensure that when this template repository was used to create a new repo that repo would have a specific set of labels.
1 min read - 2024
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Attaching a generated file to a GitHub release using Actions
For Datasette Desktop I wanted to run an action which, when I created a release, would build an asset for that release and then upload and attach it.
1 min read -
GitHub Actions, Issues and Pages to build a daily planner
I'm trying a new thing: a private daily planner, where each day I note down my goals for the day and make notes on my progress towards them as the day progresses.
1 min read -
Installing different PostgreSQL server versions in GitHub Actions
The GitHub Actions default runner currently includes an installation of PostgreSQL 13. The server is not running by default but you can interact with it like this: You can install alternative…
1 min read -
Using Prettier to check JavaScript code style in GitHub Actions
I decided to adopt Prettier as the JavaScript code style for Datasette, based on my success with Black for Python code.
1 min read -
Running cog automatically against GitHub pull requests
I really like Cog (previously) as a tool for automating aspects of my Python project documentation - things like the SQL schemas shown on the LLM logging page.
1 min read -
Conditionally running a second job in a GitHub Actions workflow
My simonwillisonblog-backup workflow periodically creates a JSON backup of my blog's PostgreSQL database, using db-to-sqlite and sqlite-diffable.
1 min read -
Using grep to write tests in CI
GitHub Actions workflows fail if any of the steps executes something that returns a non-zero exit code. Today I learned that returns a non-zero exit code if it fails to find any matches.
1 min read -
Running different steps on a schedule
Say you have a workflow that runs hourly, but once a day you want the workflow to run slightly differently - without duplicating the entire workflow. Thanks to @BrightRan, here's the solution.
1 min read -
Emulating a big-endian s390x with QEMU
I got a bug report concerning my sqlite-fts4 project running on PPC64 and s390x architectures. The s390x is an IBM mainframe architecture, which I found glamorous!
1 min read -
Skipping a GitHub Actions step without failing
I wanted to have a GitHub Action step run that might fail, but if it failed the rest of the steps should still execute and the overall run should be treated as a success.
1 min read - 2023
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Commit a file if it changed
This recipe runs a Python script to update a README, then commits it back to the parent repo but only if it has changed: My first attempt threw an error if I tried o run and the README had not…
1 min read -
Only run GitHub Action on push to master / main
Spotted in this Cloud Run example: Useful if you don't want people opening pull requests against your repo that inadvertantly trigger a deploy action!
1 min read