Initially introduced almost a decade ago as a platform-native automation instrument, GitHub Actions has been designed to provide developers with effective automation and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) abilities.
Also, compared to other automation tools, GitHub Actions delivers native capabilities directly in the GitHub flow. It also makes it effortless to leverage pre-written and experimented automation, CI/CD activities, and the capability to compose YAML files. And you know the best part? With GitHub Actions, you can better automate any workflow in your GitHub storage. Keep reading below to learn more about Github actions for Android projects.
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What do we mean by Github actions?
Github Actions refers to comprehensive assistance proposed by Github to incorporate Continuous Integration (CI) systems for your projects created on the Github platform. In addition, with the help of Github Actions, you can automate different phases of your software development lifecycle, such as test, build, analyze, bundle, deploy and release.
Why use Github actions?
GitHub Actions provides a strong collection of functionality and characteristics to assist your software developer experience. Here are some prominent reasons to use Github actions:
- Pricing: Github action is entirely free for open source tasks and self-hosted pages. In addition, for personal repos, though, a few diverse pricing standards are presented, depending on the Github account choices. Moreover, users hold the option to subscribe for the paid user once the product user reaches 2000 minutes monthly.
- Effortless integration: Github Actions remains entirely incorporated into Github. Developers own CI/CD and code pipelines in the same location.
- Seamless customization: Every workflow comprises jobs functioning in parallel or consecutively. Each job is adept at containing numerous actions/steps, and there is a vast number of seamless actions constructed by the community, and you can create and transfer custom actions effortlessly.
Tips to set up Github Actions for Android projects
Here are some tips to follow for setting up Github Actions for Android projects.
- Develop your first workflow
To create a workflow, you will require a separate .yaml file for every workflow. In addition, every workflow can have one or more tasks, and they operate in parallel by default. Every job comprises a series of steps, and every step executes a shell control or uses a published activity from the Github marketplace.
- Examine the code
Next, you require a different .yaml file for every workflow. In addition, you must add this path .github/workflows/ to your Github repo. It will assist you in ensuring that your workflow would not break when a unique action version is printed with a transformation that could split things.
- Set up JDK and upload an apk
Set up the Java setting using the setup-java action and then build the app. Furthermore, you can merely operate an assemble Gradle task to create the apk, then employ the upload-artifact step to upload it with the help of the apk’s path.
- Caching dependencies
You might know that downloading dependencies for Android projects is generally a time-consuming undertaking. Given this reason, it becomes prudent to cache them using the cache activity and revamp it only when either the dependencies category or a Gradle file has been modified.
- Holding secrets secure
Using confidential data like API access in your app is remarkably common. This data should not get accumulated in your repo and forced, particularly for open source tasks. Furthermore, Github Secrets is a secure location to keep this data privately. You can hold your secrets there and recover them into your Github workflow.
- Performing tests
Unit examinations can be accomplished using a Gradle task and further detect assessments, and you can find code senses and potential bugs while using it.
- Internal release workflow
A comprehensive workflow for transferring the app internally using firebase app allocation and creating a new release after every push to the central branch. This way, you get a new app version transmitted with firebase and a new release in Github with modifications and the apl file.
The Bottom Line
In a nutshell, Github actions are a collection of activities in a GitHub repository workflow that let you tailor and implement a Software Development workflow that helps you build actions or use existing actions and tailored workflows. Also, it might not be wrong to say that Github Actions is a tool that can be effortlessly customized.
Furthermore, the best part about Github is that you can quickly share actions between projects and transmit them to the community to begin automating tasks. And if you are planning to hire an android developer to set up GitHub Actions, Uplers can be your perfect recruiting partner.