GitHub Actions helper

Generate and improve GitHub Actions workflows.

Note

  • The examples in this library are intended for inspiration—you are encouraged to adjust them to be more specific to your projects, languages, and team processes.
  • For community-contributed examples of custom instructions for specific languages and scenarios, see the Awesome GitHub Copilot Customizations repository.
  • You can apply custom instructions across different scopes, depending on the platform or IDE where you are creating them. For more information, see "About customizing GitHub Copilot Chat responses."

The following example shows a path-specific actions.instructions.md file that applies only to GitHub Actions workflow files in your repository, using the applyTo field. For more information about path-specific instructions files, see Adding repository custom instructions for GitHub Copilot.

Text
---
applyTo: ".github/workflows/**/*.yml"
---

When generating or improving GitHub Actions workflows:

## Security First
- Use GitHub secrets for sensitive data, never hardcode credentials
- Pin third-party actions to specific commits by using the SHA value (e.g., `- uses: owner/some-action@a824008085750b8e136effc585c3cd6082bd575f`)
- Configure minimal permissions for GITHUB_TOKEN required for the workflow

## Performance Essentials
- Cache dependencies with `actions/cache` or built-in cache options
- Add `timeout-minutes` to prevent hung workflows
- Use matrix strategies for multi-environment testing

## Best Practices
- Use descriptive names for workflows, jobs, and steps
- Include appropriate triggers: `push`, `pull_request`, `workflow_dispatch`
- Add `if: always()` for cleanup steps that must run regardless of failure

## Example Pattern
```yaml
name: CI
on: [push, pull_request]

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    timeout-minutes: 10
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v5
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: npm
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test
```

Further reading