github-actions

Guidance for using GitHub Actions, GitHub's built-in automation system for running jobs when code changes or other events occur. CI means automatically checking code, while CD means automatically delivering or deploying it.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to create workflows for tests and linting, cache dependencies, build applications, deploy them, run jobs across multiple versions, and reuse workflow definitions.
Why use it?
It removes repetitive manual steps from testing, building, and deployment. It also helps keep workflows secure, fast, reproducible, and properly supplied with secrets.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/plazmodium/odin-workflow/github-actions
Any agent
npx skills add Plazmodium/odin-workflow --skill github-actions
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Plazmodium/odin-workflow

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 36 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,409 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00036 $0.02409
Opus 5 $0.00018 $0.01205
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00482
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00241

Measured yesterday against content hash 34177b82e93f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

github-actions scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

agents/skills/devops/github-actions/SKILL.md · 436 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 436 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

GitHub Actions CI/CD

Instructions

  1. Assess the workflow need: CI (test/lint), CD (deploy), or automation.
  2. Follow GitHub Actions best practices:
    • Use specific action versions
    • Cache dependencies
    • Use secrets for sensitive data
    • Minimize workflow run time
  3. Provide complete workflows: Include all necessary steps and configuration.
  4. Guide on security: Secrets management, OIDC, least privilege.

Workflow Structure

# .github/workflows/ci.yml
name: CI

on:
  push:
    branches: [main, develop]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

env:
  NODE_VERSION: '20'

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Setup Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ env.NODE_VERSION }}
          cache: 'npm'

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci

      - name: Run tests
        run: npm test

Common Triggers

on:
  # Push to branches
  push:
    branches: [main, develop]
    paths:
      - 'src/**'
      - 'package.json'
    paths-ignore:
      - '**.md'
      - 'docs/**'

  # Pull requests
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]
    types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]

  # Manual trigger
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      environment:
        description: 'Deployment environment'
        required: true
        default: 'staging'
        type: choice
        options:
          - staging
          - production

  # Scheduled
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 2 * * *'  # 2 AM UTC daily

  # On release
  release:
    types: [published]

  # Called by other workflows
  workflow_call:
    inputs:
      environment:
        required: true
        type: string
    secrets:
      deploy_key:
        required: true

Caching

# Node.js with npm
- uses: actions/setup-node@v4
  with:
    node-version: '20'
    cache: 'npm'

# Custom cache
- uses: actions/cache@v4
  with:
    path: |
      ~/.npm
      node_modules
    key: ${{ runner.os }}-node-${{ hashFiles('**/package-lock.json') }}
    restore-keys: |
      ${{ runner.os }}-node-

# Rust
- uses: Swatinem/rust-cache@v2

# Go
- uses: actions/cache@v4
  with:
    path: |
      ~/go/pkg/mod
      ~/.cache/go-build
    key: ${{ runner.os }}-go-${{ hashFiles('**/go.sum') }}

Read the full file on GitHub · 436 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 436 lines · 36 tokens per session scan A 34177b82e93f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

github-actions is a skill published in the GitHub repository Plazmodium/odin-workflow (0 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 36 tokens to every session and 2,409 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-01.