Reducing Code Duplication in GitHub Actions Workflows (1/2)

We use for us and shared the IaC (Infrastructure as Code) repository for provisioning them.

- "Hey devs, here you go. Now you can install and run whatever you need in your pipelines"

Since then, I’ve been trying to improve our workflows (pipelines).

Here’s the thing: the YAML file is code. And like any other piece of code, it can benefit from clean code principles.

I don’t consider myself a clean code advocate anymore. I mean, I used to be that nick-piti kind of guy, but now I think I’ve grown... wiser🧙‍♂️?

Some code duplication? yep, fine. Some abstractions? over-engineering.


simpler >> canonically cleaner.

Anyway, reducing code duplication is generally speaking a good thing.

And reducing code duplication in your Github Actions workflows is a good thing 👍

What we have

Two workflows: release.yaml & deploy.yaml.

First, let’s clarify terms—because no, they’re not interchangeable. this question:

• "What does a release mean?"

...It depends. 🤷‍♂️

In the context of this post -> a web front-end application; I like to picture the output of each workflow:

Release

Build the Docker image and publish it to our image registry (with the appropriate tag).

• 
  Input: deployment YAML file.


• 
  Output: the server is running the new version.

Alright, this is getting long! I’ll stop here for now. In the next post, I’ll dig into actual GitHub Actions changes I made to reduce code duplication in those workflows. Stay tuned! 🚀

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thanks for reading.