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Alex Spinov
Alex Spinov

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GitHub Actions Has Free CI/CD — 2,000 Minutes/Month for Open Source

#github #automation #devops #cicd

Every Push Should Be Tested

You merge a PR. Tests pass locally. Production breaks. Because nobody ran the tests against the actual environment.

CI/CD exists to catch this. GitHub Actions makes it free.

GitHub Actions: CI/CD Built Into GitHub

GitHub Actions runs workflows directly in your GitHub repository. No external service. No webhook setup. No separate dashboard.

Free Tier

  • 2,000 minutes/month (Linux) for private repos
  • Unlimited minutes for public repos
  • 500MB storage for artifacts
  • Concurrent jobs: up to 20

Your First Workflow 

# .github/workflows/ci.yml
name: CI

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 22
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test
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Push this file. Every PR now runs tests automatically.

Deploy on Merge 

name: Deploy

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npm ci && npm run build
      - uses: cloudflare/wrangler-action@v3
        with:
          apiToken: ${{ secrets.CF_API_TOKEN }}
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Merge to main → build → deploy to Cloudflare Workers. Automatically.

Useful Patterns

Matrix Testing (Test on Multiple Versions)

jobs:
  test:
    strategy:
      matrix:
        node-version: [18, 20, 22]
        os: [ubuntu-latest, macos-latest]
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
      - run: npm test
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Cron Jobs

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 9 * * 1'  # Every Monday at 9 AM
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Reusable Workflows

jobs:
  call-tests:
    uses: ./.github/workflows/tests.yml
    with:
      environment: staging
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20,000+ Marketplace Actions

  • actions/cache: Cache dependencies for faster builds
  • docker/build-push-action: Build and push Docker images
  • peaceiris/actions-gh-pages: Deploy to GitHub Pages
  • actions/upload-artifact: Share files between jobs

GitHub Actions vs Alternatives

Feature GitHub Actions GitLab CI CircleCI
Price (OSS) Free unlimited 400 min/mo Free tier
Config YAML YAML YAML
Integration Native GitHub Native GitLab Any git
Marketplace 20K+ actions Templates Orbs
Self-hosted runners Yes Yes Yes

Get Started

Create .github/workflows/ci.yml in your repo. Push. Done.

Automate your data collection with CI/CD. 88+ scrapers on Apify. Custom: spinov001@gmail.com

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