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Using starter workflows

In this article

GitHub provides starter workflows for a variety of languages and tooling.

About starter workflows

GitHub offers starter workflows for a variety of languages and tooling. When you set up workflows in your repository, GitHub analyzes the code in your repository and recommends workflows based on the language and framework in your repository. For example, if you use Node.js, GitHub will suggest a starter workflow file that installs your Node.js packages and runs your tests. You can search and filter to find relevant starter workflows.

GitHub provides ready-to-use starter workflows for the following high level categories:

You can also create your own starter workflow to share with your organization. These starter workflows will appear alongside the GitHub-provided starter workflows. For more information, see "Creating starter workflows for your organization."

Using starter workflows

Anyone with write permission to a repository can set up GitHub Actions starter workflows for CI/CD or other automation.

  1. On GitHub.com, navigate to the main page of the repository.
  2. Under your repository name, click Actions. Actions tab in the main repository navigation
  3. If you already have a workflow in your repository, click New workflow.
  4. Find the starter workflow that you want to use, then click Set up this workflow. To help you find the starter workflow that you want, you can search for keywords or filter by category.
  5. If the starter workflow contains comments detailing additional setup steps, follow these steps. Many of the starter workflow have corresponding guides. For more information, see the GitHub Actions guides."
  6. Some starter workflows use secrets. For example, ${{ secrets.npm_token }}. If the starter workflow uses a secret, store the value described in the secret name as a secret in your repository. For more information, see "Encrypted secrets."
  7. Optionally, make additional changes. For example, you might want to change the value of on to change when the workflow runs.
  8. Click Start commit.
  9. Write a commit message and decide whether to commit directly to the default branch or to open a pull request.

Further reading