CI/CD & Automation with GitHub Actions

By bamr87

Set up GitHub Actions workflows for automated building, testing, link checking, frontmatter validation, and deployment of your Jekyll site.

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Table of Contents

This guide covers Phase 13 of the Quick Start — setting up GitHub Actions for automated building, testing, and deployment.

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Active Workflows in IT-Journey

IT-Journey runs 7 GitHub Actions workflows:

Workflow	Trigger	What It Does
Build Validation	Push, PR	Builds the Jekyll site and catches errors
Link Health Guardian	Schedule (Mon/Fri), Manual	Scans for broken links with optional AI analysis
Frontmatter Validation	PR, Manual	Validates YAML metadata with auto-fix
AI Content Review	PR, Push	GPT-4 quality analysis of content
Organize Posts	Weekly schedule	Auto-categorizes posts into folders
CodeQL Analysis	Schedule, Push	Security vulnerability scanning
Dependency Checker	Schedule	Alerts on outdated dependencies

Workflow files live in .github/workflows/.

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Basic Build & Deploy Workflow

A minimal workflow that builds your Jekyll site and deploys to GitHub Pages:

name: Build and Deploy
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: ruby/setup-ruby@v1
        with:
          ruby-version: '3.2'
          bundler-cache: true
      - run: bundle exec jekyll build
      - uses: actions/upload-pages-artifact@v3
        with:
          path: _site/

  deploy:
    needs: build
    permissions:
      pages: write
      id-token: write
    environment:
      name: github-pages
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/deploy-pages@v4

This workflow:

1. Checks out the code
2. Sets up Ruby 3.2 with bundler caching
3. Builds the Jekyll site
4. Uploads _site/ as an artifact
5. Deploys to GitHub Pages

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Testing Tools

Tool	Command	What It Checks
Link Checker	python3 scripts/link-checker.py --scope website	Broken internal/external links
Quest Validator	python3 test/quest-validator/quest_validator.py -d pages/_quests/	Quest frontmatter and content structure
Markdown Lint	markdownlint **/*.md	Markdown style and formatting

Running Tests Locally

# Check links
python3 scripts/link-checker.py --scope website --timeout 30

# Validate quests
python3 test/quest-validator/quest_validator.py -d pages/_quests/

# Lint markdown
markdownlint "**/*.md"

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Automation Scripts

IT-Journey includes scripts for common tasks:

Environment & Build

# Set up development environment
./scripts/core/environment-setup.sh

# Build for production
./scripts/development/build/build-site.sh --production

Version Management

# Semantic version bumping
./scripts/core/version-manager.sh patch   # 1.0.0 → 1.0.1
./scripts/core/version-manager.sh minor   # 1.0.0 → 1.1.0
./scripts/core/version-manager.sh major   # 1.0.0 → 2.0.0

Content Management

# Convert Jupyter notebooks to Markdown
./scripts/development/content/jupyter-to-markdown.sh pages/_notebooks/

# Organize posts by category
python3 scripts/development/content/organize-posts.py --dry-run

# Generate content statistics
make stats-update

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Writing Custom Workflows

Workflow Triggers

Trigger	When It Runs
push	On every push to specified branches
pull_request	On PR open, sync, or reopen
schedule	On a cron schedule
workflow_dispatch	Manual trigger from GitHub UI

Example: PR Validation

name: PR Quality Check
on:
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  validate:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      
      - name: Build site
        uses: ruby/setup-ruby@v1
        with:
          ruby-version: '3.2'
          bundler-cache: true
      - run: bundle exec jekyll build
      
      - name: Check links
        run: python3 scripts/link-checker.py --scope website --timeout 30
      
      - name: Lint markdown
        run: |
          npm install -g markdownlint-cli
          markdownlint "**/*.md" || true

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Secrets and Environment Variables

Store sensitive values as GitHub Secrets (Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions):

Secret	Used By
AZURE_STATIC_WEB_APPS_API_TOKEN	Azure deployment
OPENAI_API_KEY	AI Content Review workflow

Access in workflows with $.

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What’s Next

Next Step	Guide
Optimize for SEO, performance, and accessibility	Optimization & Maintenance

IT-Journey Quests: CI/CD Fundamentals · GitHub Actions Basics · Bash Scripting

IT-Journey Docs: GitHub Actions Workflows · Testing Frameworks · Scripts Guide

External Docs: GitHub Actions · markdownlint Rules