Checkout Done Right in GitHub Actions

Most GitHub Actions workflows assume your repository’s code is already present on the runner — but it isn’t. Runners start with an empty workspace, and actions/checkout is the step that pulls your repo into $GITHUB_WORKSPACE so the rest of your jobs can build, test, lint, or deploy.

In the full tutorial, we cover:

• The standard actions/checkout@v4 setup and what it actually does
• Practical use cases: checking out a specific branch/commit, sparse checkout, and submodules
• Working with private repos safely (tokens/permissions) and common pitfalls

➡️ Read the full article on our blog:

https://spacelift.io/blog/github-actions-checkout