🚀 Deploy a Node.js App to AWS EC2 with GitHub Actions in 15 Minutes

CI/CD pipelines make development faster, safer, and more consistent. In this guide, we’ll automate the deployment of a Node.js app to an EC2 instance using GitHub Actions.

🧱 Prerequisites

Basic AWS account with EC2 access
A running EC2 instance (Amazon Linux 2 or Ubuntu)
SSH key pair configured
A simple Node.js app in a GitHub repo
GitHub Actions enabled in your repo

☁️ Step 1: Launch and Configure EC2

Go to EC2 → Launch instance
Use Amazon Linux 2 or Ubuntu
Open port 22 (SSH) and port 3000 (app port) in the security group
SSH into the server:
ssh -i your-key.pem ec2-user@<EC2_PUBLIC_IP>
Install Node.js:
sudo yum update -y curl -sL https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_16.x | sudo bash - sudo yum install -y nodejs git

🔧 Step 2: Set Up the Node.js App

SSH into the server and clone your repo:
git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/<your-repo>.git cd <your-repo> npm install node app.js # or your startup script
Ensure it runs on port 3000.

🔐 Step 3: Configure SSH Key as a GitHub Secret

Convert your private key to a single line:
cat your-key.pem | base64
Go to your GitHub repo → Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions → Add new secret:

EC2_KEY → Paste base64 key
EC2_USER → ec2-user
EC2_HOST →

🧪 Step 4: GitHub Actions Workflow

Create a file in your repo: .github/workflows/deploy.yml

name: Deploy to EC2

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v3

      - name: Decode private key
        run: |
          echo "${{ secrets.EC2_KEY }}" | base64 -d > key.pem
          chmod 600 key.pem

      - name: Deploy over SSH
        run: |
          ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -i key.pem ${{ secrets.EC2_USER }}@${{ secrets.EC2_HOST }} << EOF
            cd <your-app-folder>
            git pull origin main
            npm install
            pkill node || true
            nohup node app.js > app.log 2>&1 &
          EOF

✅ Done!
Now, every time you git push, GitHub Actions will automatically deploy your app to your EC2 instance.

📌 Final Tips