Quickstart: Create a GitHub workflow to publish an app
In this quickstart, you will learn how to create a GitHub workflow to publish your .NET app from source code. Automatically publishing your .NET app from GitHub to a destination is referred to as a continuous deployment (CD). There are many possible destinations to publish an application, in this quickstart you'll publish to Azure.
Prerequisites
- A GitHub account.
- A .NET source code repository.
- An Azure account with an active subscription. Create an account for free.
- An ASP.NET Core web app.
- An Azure App Service resource.
Add publish profile
To publish the app to Azure, open the Azure portal for the App Service instance of the application. In the resource Overview, select Get publish profile and save the *.PublishSetting file locally.
Warning
The publish profile contains sensitive information, such as credentials for accessing your Azure App Service resource. This information should always be treated very carefully.
In the GitHub repository, navigate to Settings and select Secrets from the left navigation menu. Select New repository secret, to add a new secret.
Enter AZURE_PUBLISH_PROFILE
as the Name, and paste the XML content from the publish profile into the Value text area. Select Add secret. For more information, see Encrypted secrets.
Create a workflow file
In the GitHub repository, add a new YAML file to the .github/workflows directory. Choose a meaningful file name, something that will clearly indicate what the workflow is intended to do. For more information, see Workflow file.
Important
GitHub requires that workflow composition files to be placed within the .github/workflows directory.
Workflow files typically define a composition of one or more GitHub Action via the jobs.<job_id>/steps[*]
. For more information, see, Workflow syntax for GitHub Actions.
Create a new file named publish-app.yml, copy and paste the following YML contents into it:
name: publish
on:
push:
branches: [ production ]
env:
AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME: DotNetWeb
AZURE_WEBAPP_PACKAGE_PATH: '.' # Set this to the path to your web app project, defaults to the repository root:
DOTNET_VERSION: '6.0.401' # The .NET SDK version to use
jobs:
publish:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v3
- name: Setup .NET Core
uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v3
with:
dotnet-version: ${{ env.DOTNET_VERSION }}
- name: Install dependencies
run: dotnet restore
- name: Build
run: |
cd DotNet.WebApp
dotnet build --configuration Release --no-restore
dotnet publish -c Release -o ../dotnet-webapp -r linux-x64 --self-contained true /p:UseAppHost=true
- name: Test
run: |
cd DotNet.WebApp.Tests
dotnet test --no-restore --verbosity normal
- uses: azure/webapps-deploy@v2
name: Deploy
with:
app-name: ${{ env.AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME }}
publish-profile: ${{ secrets.AZURE_PUBLISH_PROFILE }}
package: '${{ env.AZURE_WEBAPP_PACKAGE_PATH }}/dotnet-webapp'
In the preceding workflow composition:
The
name: publish
defines the name, "publish" will appear in workflow status badges.name: publish
The
on
node signifies the events that trigger the workflow:on: push: branches: [ production ]
- Triggered when a
push
occurs on theproduction
branch.
- Triggered when a
The
env
node defines named environment variables (env var).env: AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME: DotNetWeb AZURE_WEBAPP_PACKAGE_PATH: '.' # Set this to the path to your web app project, defaults to the repository root: DOTNET_VERSION: '6.0.401' # The .NET SDK version to use
- The environment variable
AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME
is assigned the valueDotNetWeb
. - The environment variable
AZURE_WEBAPP_PACKAGE_PATH
is assigned the value'.'
. - The environment variable
DOTNET_VERSION
is assigned the value'6.0.401'
. The environment variable is later referenced to specify thedotnet-version
of theactions/setup-dotnet@v3
GitHub Action.
- The environment variable
The
jobs
node builds out the steps for the workflow to take.jobs: publish: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - uses: actions/checkout@v3 - name: Setup .NET Core uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v3 with: dotnet-version: ${{ env.DOTNET_VERSION }} - name: Install dependencies run: dotnet restore - name: Build run: | cd DotNet.WebApp dotnet build --configuration Release --no-restore dotnet publish -c Release -o ../dotnet-webapp -r linux-x64 --self-contained true /p:UseAppHost=true - name: Test run: | cd DotNet.WebApp.Tests dotnet test --no-restore --verbosity normal - uses: azure/webapps-deploy@v2 name: Deploy with: app-name: ${{ env.AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME }} publish-profile: ${{ secrets.AZURE_PUBLISH_PROFILE }} package: '${{ env.AZURE_WEBAPP_PACKAGE_PATH }}/dotnet-webapp'
- There is a single job, named
publish
that will run on the latest version of Ubuntu. - The
actions/setup-dotnet@v3
GitHub Action is used to set up the .NET SDK with the specified version from theDOTNET_VERSION
environment variable. - The
dotnet restore
command is called. - The
dotnet build
command is called. - The
dotnet publish
command is called. - The
dotnet test
command is called. - The
azure/webapps-deploy@v2
GitHub Action deploys the app with the givenpublish-profile
andpackage
.- The
publish-profile
is assigned from theAZURE_PUBLISH_PROFILE
repository secret.
- The
- There is a single job, named
Create a workflow status badge
It's common nomenclature for GitHub repositories to have a README.md file at the root of the repository directory. Likewise, it's nice to report the latest status for various workflows. All workflows can generate a status badge, which are visually appealing within the README.md file. To add the workflow status badge:
From the GitHub repository select the Actions navigation option.
All repository workflows are displayed on the left-side, select the desired workflow and the ellipsis (...) button.
- The ellipsis (...) button expands the menu options for the selected workflow.
Select the Create status badge menu option.
Select the Copy status badge Markdown button.
Paste the Markdown into the README.md file, save the file, commit and push the changes.
For more, see Adding a workflow status badge.
Example publish workflow status badge
Passing | Failing | No status |
---|---|---|
|
|
|
See also
Next steps
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