Hi there 👋!

Hello @gisedaye, I'm so excited to teach you how to create your own custom Docker based action 😄

GitHub Actions are enabled on your repository by default, but we still have to tell our repository to use them. We do this by creating a workflow file in our repository.

What is a workflow file?

A workflow file can be thought of as the recipe for automating a task. They house the start-to-finish instructions, in the form of jobs and steps, for what should happen based on specific triggers.

Your repository can contain multiple workflow files that carry out a wide variety of tasks. It is important to consider this when deciding on a name for your workflow. The name you choose should reflect the tasks being performed.

In our case, we will use this one workflow file for many things, which leads us to break this convention for teaching purposes.

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📖 Read more about workflows

Hello world with Docker 🐳

@gisedaye we are going to start with the typical "Hello World" example and build something more complex after, but first let's decide if a Docker based action is the right action for us!

Why use Docker when writing GitHub Actions?

That's a super great question to ask. Before we talk about the components that make up Docker based actions, we should understand the good and the bad of Docker based actions.

Advantages	Disadvantages
Docker actions package the source code that will be executed right alongside any dependencies that source code has.	Slower execution time because the image containing your source code and dependencies gets built with every workflow run.
Docker containers package the environment with the GitHub Actions code. This creates a more consistent and reliable unit of work because the consumer of the action does not need to worry about the tools or dependencies.	Docker container actions can only execute in the GitHub-hosted Linux environment.
Ideal for running in environments with very specific configurations and tools.	Debugging can be difficult with containers.
Actions can be written in any language you choose.	More files to maintain when changes to the action occur.

Got it, what now?

Let's begin by exploring the components of a Docker based action and discuss how they fit together!