Publishing and installing a package with GitHub Actions

About GitHub Packages with GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions help you automate your software development workflows in the same place you store code and collaborate on pull requests and issues. You can write individual tasks, called actions, and combine them to create a custom workflow. With GitHub Actions you can build end-to-end continuous integration (CI) and continuous deployment (CD) capabilities directly in your repository. For more information, see "Learn GitHub Actions."

You can extend the CI and CD capabilities of your repository by publishing or installing packages as part of your workflow.

Authenticating to package registries with granular permissions

Some GitHub Packages registries support granular permissions. This means you can choose to allow packages to be scoped to a user or an organization, or linked to a repository. For the list of registries that support granular permissions, see "About permissions for GitHub Packages."

For registries that support granular permissions, if your GitHub Actions workflow is using a personal access token to authenticate to a registry, we highly recommend you update your workflow to use the GITHUB_TOKEN. For guidance on updating your workflows that authenticate to a registry with a personal access token, see "Publishing and installing a package with GitHub Actions."

For more information about the GITHUB_TOKEN, see "Automatic token authentication." For more information about the best practices when using a registry in actions, see "Security hardening for GitHub Actions."

Authenticating to package registries with repository-scoped permissions

Some GitHub Packages registries only support repository-scoped permissions, and do not support granular permissions. For a list of these registries, see "About permissions for GitHub Packages."

If you want your workflow to access a GitHub Packages registry that does not support granular permissions, then we recommend using the GITHUB_TOKEN that GitHub Enterprise Server automatically creates for your repository when you enable GitHub Actions. You should set the permissions for this access token in the workflow file to grant read access for the contents scope and write access for the packages scope. For forks, the GITHUB_TOKEN is granted read access for the parent repository. For more information, see "Automatic token authentication."

You can reference the GITHUB_TOKEN in your workflow file using the {{secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN}} context. For more information, see "Automatic token authentication."

About permissions and package access

Packages scoped to users or organizations

Registries that support granular permissions allow users to create and administer packages as free-standing resources at the organization level. Packages can be scoped to an organization or personal account and you can customize access to each of your packages separately from repository permissions.

All workflows accessing registries that support granular permissions should use the GITHUB_TOKEN instead of a personal access token. For more information about security best practices, see "Security hardening for GitHub Actions."

Packages scoped to repositories

When you enable GitHub Actions, GitHub installs a GitHub App on your repository. The GITHUB_TOKEN secret is a GitHub App installation access token. You can use the installation access token to authenticate on behalf of the GitHub App installed on your repository. The token's permissions are limited to the repository that contains your workflow. For more information, see "Automatic token authentication."

GitHub Packages allows you to push and pull packages through the GITHUB_TOKEN available to a GitHub Actions workflow.

Default permissions and access settings for packages modified through workflows

For packages in registries that support granular permissions, when you create, install, modify, or delete a package through a workflow, there are some default permission and access settings used to ensure admins have access to the workflow. You can adjust these access settings as well. For the list of registries that support granular permissions, see "About permissions for GitHub Packages."

For example, by default if a workflow creates a package using the GITHUB_TOKEN, then:

The package inherits the visibility and permissions model of the repository where the workflow is run.
Repository admins where the workflow is run become the admins of the package once the package is created.

These are more examples of how default permissions work for workflows that manage packages.

GitHub Actions workflow task	Default permissions and access
Download an existing	- If the package is public, any workflow running in any repository can download the package. - If the package is internal, then all workflows running in any repository owned by the Enterprise account can download the package. For enterprise-owned organizations, you can read any repository in the enterprise - If the package is private, only workflows running in repositories that are given read permission on that package can download the package.
Upload a new version to an existing package	- If the package is private, internal, or public, only workflows running in repositories that are given write permission on that package can upload new versions to the package.
Delete a package or versions of a package	- If the package is private, internal, or public, only workflows running in repositories that are given admin permission can delete existing versions of the package.

You can also adjust access to packages in a more granular way or adjust some of the default permissions behavior. For more information, see "Configuring a package's access control and visibility."

Publishing a package using an action

You can use GitHub Actions to automatically publish packages as part of your continuous integration (CI) flow. This approach to continuous deployment (CD) allows you to automate the creation of new package versions, if the code meets your quality standards. For example, you could create a workflow that runs CI tests every time a developer pushes code to a particular branch. If the tests pass, the workflow can publish a new package version to GitHub Packages.

Configuration steps vary by package client. For general information about configuring a workflow for GitHub Actions, see "Using workflows."

The following example demonstrates how you can use GitHub Actions to build and test your app, and then automatically create a Docker image and publish it to GitHub Packages. The relevant settings are explained in the code. For full details about each element in a workflow, see "Workflow syntax for GitHub Actions."

Create a new workflow file in your repository (such as .github/workflows/deploy-image.yml), and add the following YAML.

Notes:

This workflow uses actions that are not certified by GitHub. They are provided by a third-party and are governed by separate terms of service, privacy policy, and support documentation.
GitHub recommends pinning actions to a commit SHA. To get a newer version, you will need to update the SHA. You can also reference a tag or branch, but the action may change without warning.

YAML

#
name: Create and publish a Docker image

# Configures this workflow to run every time a change is pushed to the branch called `release`.
on:
  push:
    branches: ['release']

jobs:
# This job checks out the repository contents, installs `npm`, uses npm and webpack to build the app, and uploads the built files as an artifact that can be downloaded later in the workflow.
# It assumes that the built files are written to a directory called `public`.
  run-npm-build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: npm install and build webpack
        run: |
          npm install
          npm run build
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3
        with:
          name: webpack artifacts
          path: public/

# This job uses `npm test` to test the code. `needs: run-npm-build` makes this job dependent on the `run-npm-build` job.
  run-npm-test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: run-npm-build
    strategy:
      matrix:
        os: [ubuntu-latest]
        node-version: [14.x, 16.x]
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Use Node.js ${{ matrix.node-version }}
        uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
      - uses: actions/download-artifact@v3
        with:
          name: webpack artifacts
          path: public
      - name: npm install, and test
        run: |
          npm install
          npm test
        env:
          CI: true

# This job publishes the package. `needs: run-npm-test` makes this job dependent on the `run-npm-test` job.
  build-and-push-image:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: run-npm-test 
    # Sets the permissions granted to the `GITHUB_TOKEN` for the actions in this job.
    permissions:
      contents: read
      packages: write 
      #
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      # Uses the `docker/login-action` action to log in to the registry using the account and password that will publish the packages. Once published, the packages are scoped to the account defined here.
      - name: Log in to GitHub Docker Registry
        uses: docker/login-action@65b78e6e13532edd9afa3aa52ac7964289d1a9c1
        with:
          registry: docker.pkg.github.com
          username: ${{ github.actor }}
          password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      # This step uses the `docker/build-push-action` action to build the image, based on your repository's `Dockerfile`. If the build succeeds, it pushes the image to GitHub Packages.
      # It uses the `tags` parameter to tag the image with the SHA of the commit that triggered the workflow.
      - name: Build and push Docker image
        uses: docker/build-push-action@f2a1d5e99d037542a71f64918e516c093c6f3fc4
        with:
          push: true
          tags: |
            docker.pkg.github.com/${{ github.repository }}/octo-image:${{ github.sha }}

name: Create and publish a Docker image

on:
  push:
    branches: ['release']
jobs:

Configures this workflow to run every time a change is pushed to the branch called release.

  run-npm-build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: npm install and build webpack
        run: |
          npm install
          npm run build
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3
        with:
          name: webpack artifacts
          path: public/

This job checks out the repository contents, installs npm, uses npm and webpack to build the app, and uploads the built files as an artifact that can be downloaded later in the workflow. It assumes that the built files are written to a directory called public.

  run-npm-test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: run-npm-build
    strategy:
      matrix:
        os: [ubuntu-latest]
        node-version: [14.x, 16.x]
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Use Node.js ${{ matrix.node-version }}
        uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
      - uses: actions/download-artifact@v3
        with:
          name: webpack artifacts
          path: public
      - name: npm install, and test
        run: |
          npm install
          npm test
        env:
          CI: true

This job uses npm test to test the code. needs: run-npm-build makes this job dependent on the run-npm-build job.

  build-and-push-image:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: run-npm-test

This job publishes the package. needs: run-npm-test makes this job dependent on the run-npm-test job.

    permissions:
      contents: read
      packages: write

Sets the permissions granted to the GITHUB_TOKEN for the actions in this job.

    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Log in to GitHub Docker Registry
        uses: docker/login-action@65b78e6e13532edd9afa3aa52ac7964289d1a9c1
        with:
          registry: docker.pkg.github.com
          username: ${{ github.actor }}
          password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Uses the docker/login-action action to log in to the registry using the account and password that will publish the packages. Once published, the packages are scoped to the account defined here.

      - name: Build and push Docker image
        uses: docker/build-push-action@f2a1d5e99d037542a71f64918e516c093c6f3fc4
        with:
          push: true
          tags: |
            docker.pkg.github.com/${{ github.repository }}/octo-image:${{ github.sha }}

This step uses the docker/build-push-action action to build the image, based on your repository's Dockerfile. If the build succeeds, it pushes the image to GitHub Packages. It uses the tags parameter to tag the image with the SHA of the commit that triggered the workflow.

#
name: Create and publish a Docker image

# Configures this workflow to run every time a change is pushed to the branch called `release`.
on:
  push:
    branches: ['release']

jobs:
# This job checks out the repository contents, installs `npm`, uses npm and webpack to build the app, and uploads the built files as an artifact that can be downloaded later in the workflow.
# It assumes that the built files are written to a directory called `public`.
  run-npm-build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: npm install and build webpack
        run: |
          npm install
          npm run build
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3
        with:
          name: webpack artifacts
          path: public/

# This job uses `npm test` to test the code. `needs: run-npm-build` makes this job dependent on the `run-npm-build` job.
  run-npm-test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: run-npm-build
    strategy:
      matrix:
        os: [ubuntu-latest]
        node-version: [14.x, 16.x]
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Use Node.js ${{ matrix.node-version }}
        uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
      - uses: actions/download-artifact@v3
        with:
          name: webpack artifacts
          path: public
      - name: npm install, and test
        run: |
          npm install
          npm test
        env:
          CI: true

# This job publishes the package. `needs: run-npm-test` makes this job dependent on the `run-npm-test` job.
  build-and-push-image:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: run-npm-test 
    # Sets the permissions granted to the `GITHUB_TOKEN` for the actions in this job.
    permissions:
      contents: read
      packages: write 
      #
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      # Uses the `docker/login-action` action to log in to the registry using the account and password that will publish the packages. Once published, the packages are scoped to the account defined here.
      - name: Log in to GitHub Docker Registry
        uses: docker/login-action@65b78e6e13532edd9afa3aa52ac7964289d1a9c1
        with:
          registry: docker.pkg.github.com
          username: ${{ github.actor }}
          password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      # This step uses the `docker/build-push-action` action to build the image, based on your repository's `Dockerfile`. If the build succeeds, it pushes the image to GitHub Packages.
      # It uses the `tags` parameter to tag the image with the SHA of the commit that triggered the workflow.
      - name: Build and push Docker image
        uses: docker/build-push-action@f2a1d5e99d037542a71f64918e516c093c6f3fc4
        with:
          push: true
          tags: |
            docker.pkg.github.com/${{ github.repository }}/octo-image:${{ github.sha }}

This new workflow will run automatically every time you push a change to a branch named release in the repository. You can view the progress in the Actions tab.

A few minutes after the workflow has completed, the new package will visible in your repository. To find your available packages, see "

Publishing and installing a package with GitHub Actions

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