Build Your First Pipeline

Goal: validate every push builds & tests in under 5 minutes.

Prereqs

• Git repo with a small app
• Basic test command

Steps

1. Add workflow file (.github/workflows/ci.yml)
2. Install dependencies
3. Run tests
4. Cache dependencies for speed
5. Surface status badge

Example (GitHub Actions)

name: CI
on: [push, pull_request]
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: npm
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test --if-present

Extend

• Add lint + type check
• Add security scan (e.g. Trivy, CodeQL)
• Add artifact packaging

Success Criteria

• Green build on main
• Failing tests block merges
• Duration < 5m

Ship the simple pipeline first; optimize after reliability.