Using GitHub Packages with GitHub Actions

About GitHub Packages with GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions help you automate your software development workflows in the same place you store code and collaborate on pull requests and issues. You can write individual tasks, called actions, and combine them to create a custom workflow. With GitHub Actions you can build end-to-end continuous integration (CI) and continuous deployment (CD) capabilities directly in your repository. For more information, see "About GitHub Actions."

You can extend the CI and CD capabilities of your repository by publishing or installing packages as part of your workflow.

Authenticating to GitHub Container Registry

If you want to authenticate to GitHub Container Registry in a GitHub Actions workflow, then you must use a personal access token (PAT). The GITHUB_TOKEN does not currently have the required permissions. During the GitHub Container Registry beta, the only supported form of authentication is the PAT.

PATs can grant broad access to your account. We recommend selecting only the necessary read, write, or delete package scope when creating a PAT to authenticate to the container registry. Avoid including the repo scope in a PAT used by a GitHub Actions workflow because it gives unnecessary additional access.

If you'd like to use the container registry in actions during the beta, follow our security best practices for PAT use at "Security hardening for GitHub Actions."

For an authentication example, see "Authenticating with the container registry."

Authenticating to package registries on GitHub

If you want your workflow to authenticate to GitHub Packages to access a package registry other than the container registry on GitHub, then we recommend using the GITHUB_TOKEN that GitHub automatically creates for your repository when you enable GitHub Actions instead of a personal access token for authentication. The GITHUB_TOKEN has read:packages and write:packages scopes to the current repository. For forks, the token also has the read:packages scope for the parent repository.

You can reference the GITHUB_TOKEN in your workflow file using the {{secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN}} context. For more information, see "Authenticating with the GITHUB_TOKEN."

Publishing a package using an action

You can use GitHub Actions to automatically publish packages as part of your continuous integration (CI) flow. This approach to continuous deployment (CD) allows you to automate the creation of new package versions, if the code meets your quality standards. For example, you could create a workflow that runs CI tests every time a developer pushes code to a particular branch. If the tests pass, the workflow can publish a new package version to GitHub Packages.

Configuration steps vary by package client. For general information about configuring a workflow for GitHub Actions, see "Configuring a workflow."

The following example demonstrates how you can use GitHub Actions to build and test your app, and then automatically create a Docker image and publish it to GitHub Packages:

• Create a new workflow file in your repository (such as .github/workflows/deploy-image.yml), and add the following YAML:

  name: Create and publish a package
  on:
    push:
      branches: ['release']
  jobs:
    run-npm-build:
      runs-on: ubuntu-latest
      steps:
        - uses: actions/checkout@v2
        - name: npm install and build webpack
          run: |
            npm install
            npm run build
        - uses: actions/upload-artifact@main
          with:
            name: webpack artifacts
            path: public/
  
    run-npm-test:
      runs-on: ubuntu-latest
      needs: run-npm-build
      strategy:
        matrix:
          os: [ubuntu-latest]
          node-version: [12.x, 14.x]
      steps:
        - uses: actions/checkout@v2
        - name: Use Node.js ${{ matrix.node-version }}
          uses: actions/setup-node@v1
          with:
            node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
        - uses: actions/download-artifact@main
          with:
            name: webpack artifacts
            path: public
        - name: npm install, and test
          run: |
            npm install
            npm test
          env:
            CI: true
  
    build-and-push-image:
      runs-on: ubuntu-latest
      needs: run-npm-test
      steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Build container image
        uses: docker/build-push-action@v1
        with:
          username: ${{ github.actor }}
          password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          registry: docker.pkg.github.com
          repository: ${{ github.repository }}/octo-image
          tag_with_sha: true
          tag_with_ref: true
  

The relevant settings are explained in the following table:

on:
  push:
    branches: ['release']

run-npm-build:
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
    - name: npm install and build webpack
      run: |
        npm install
        npm run build
    - uses: actions/upload-artifact@main
      with:
        name: webpack artifacts
        path: public/

run-npm-test:
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  needs: run-npm-build
  strategy:
    matrix:
      os: [ubuntu-latest]
      node-version: [14.x]
  steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
    - name: Use Node.js ${{ matrix.node-version }}
      uses: actions/setup-node@v1
      with:
        node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
    - uses: actions/download-artifact@main
      with:
        name: webpack artifacts
        path: public
    - name: npm install, and test
      run: |
        npm install
        npm test
      env:
        CI: true

- name: Build container image

uses: docker/build-push-action@v1

with:

username: ${{ github.actor }}

password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

registry: docker.pkg.github.com

repository: ${{ github.repository }}/octo-image

tag_with_sha: true

tag_with_ref: true

• This new workflow will run automatically every time you push a change to the repository. You can view the progress in the Actions tab.
• A few minutes after the workflow has completed, the new package will visible in your repository. To find your available packages, see "Viewing a repository's packages."

Installing a package using an action

You can install packages as part of your CI flow using GitHub Actions. For example, you could configure a workflow so that anytime a developer pushes code to a pull request, the workflow resolves dependencies by downloading and installing packages hosted by GitHub Packages. Then, the workflow can run CI tests that require the dependencies.

Installing packages hosted by GitHub Packages through GitHub Actions requires minimal configuration or additional authentication when you use GITHUB_TOKEN. Data transfer is also free when an action installs a package. For more information, see "About billing for GitHub Packages."

GITHUB_TOKEN cannot install packages from any private repository besides the repository where the action runs. You cannot currently use GITHUB_TOKEN to authenticate to GitHub Container Registry.

Configuration steps vary by package client. For general information about configuring a workflow for GitHub Actions, see "Configuring a workflow."