Quickstart for GitHub Actions

Introduction

Printing "Hello, World!" is a great way to explore the basic set up and syntax of a new programming language. In this guide, you'll use GitHub Actions to print "Hello, World!" within your GitHub repository's workflow logs. All you need to get started is a GitHub repository where you feel comfortable creating and running a sample GitHub Actions workflow. Feel free to create a new repository for this Quickstart, you can use it to test this and future GitHub Actions workflows.

Creating your first workflow

1. From your repository on GitHub, create a new file in the .github/workflows directory named hello-world.yml. For more information, see "Creating new files."

2. Copy the following YAML contents into the hello-world.yml file.

   YAML

   name: Say hello!
   
   # GitHub Actions Workflows are automatically triggered by GitHub events
   on:
     # For this workflow, we're using the workflow_dispatch event which is triggered when the user clicks Run workflow in the GitHub Actions UI
     workflow_dispatch:
       # The workflow_dispatch event accepts optional inputs so you can customize the behavior of the workflow
       inputs:
         name:
           description: 'Person to greet'
           required: true
           default: 'World'
   # When the event is triggered, GitHub Actions will run the jobs indicated
   jobs:
     say_hello:
       # Uses a ubuntu-latest runner to complete the requested steps
       runs-on: ubuntu-latest
       steps:
       - run: |
           echo "Hello ${{ github.event.inputs.name }}!"

3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Create a new branch for this commit and start a pull request. Then, to create a pull request, click Propose new file.

   

4. Once the pull request has been merged, you'll be ready to move on to "Trigger your workflow".

Trigger your workflow

1. On GitHub Enterprise Server, navigate to the main page of the repository.
2. Under your repository name, click Actions.
   
3. In the left sidebar, click the workflow you want to run.
   
4. On the right, click the Run workflow drop-down and click Run workflow. Optionally, you can enter a custom message into the "Person to greet" input before running the workflow.
   
5. The workflow run will appear at the top of the list of "Say hello!" workflow runs. Click "Say hello!" to see the result of the workflow run.
   
6. In the left sidebar, click the "say_hello" job.
   
7. In the workflow logs, expand the 'Run echo "Hello World!"' section.
   

More workflow templates

GitHub provides preconfigured workflow templates that you can customize to create your own continuous integration workflow. GitHub Enterprise Server analyzes your code and shows you CI templates that might be useful for your repository. For example, if your repository contains Node.js code, you'll see suggestions for Node.js projects. You can use workflow templates as a starting place to build your custom workflow or use them as-is.

You can browse the full list of workflow templates in the actions/starter-workflows repository on your GitHub Enterprise Server instance.

Next steps

The hello-world workflow you just added is a simple example of a manually triggered workflow. This is only the beginning of what you can do with GitHub Actions. Your repository can contain multiple workflows that trigger different jobs based on different events. GitHub Actions can help you automate nearly every aspect of your application development processes. Ready to get started? Here are some helpful resources for taking your next steps with GitHub Actions:

• "Learn GitHub Actions" for an in-depth tutorial
• "Guides" for specific uses cases and examples