Build GitHub Actions with Typescript

They’re fast and they run everywhere

Photo by Ruca Souza from Pexels

GitHub Actions is a CI/CD platform

GitHub Actions (as for other CI/CD services/platforms):

• Triggers on events
• Prepare environment(s)
• Runs workflow(s)
• Report results

A GitHub Action can either be a Dockerfile or Javascript

In a Dockerfile action:

• The environment is defined by container layers
• The workflow is defined by entry point bash script

In a JavaScript action:

• The environment is defined in the package.json, as NPM modules
• The workflow is defined by the JavaScript/TypeScript code

JavaScript actions are faster and more stable

The strength of JavaScript actions, compared with Dockerfile actions, are:

• The familiar syntax for most web/mobile/back end developers
• Runs everywhere (JavaScript is less restrictive than Docker)
• Runs faster by skipping container building and VM warm-ups.