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For a very long time, GitHub has focused on storing the source code and sharing it with the rest of the world or with your colleagues. Today, the company, which is being acquired by Microsoft, is taking a step in a different but related direction by launching GitHub Actions. The actions allow developers to not only host code on the platform, but also to run it. We're not talking about a new cloud here to compete with AWS, but rather a more flexible IFTTT-like system for developers who want to automate their development workflows, whether it's sending notifications or to create a seamless pipeline of integration and dissemination.
This is a big problem for GitHub . Sam Lambert, head of the GitHub platform, described it to me as "the biggest change we've ever had in GitHub history." He compared this to shortcuts in iOS – just more flexible. "Imagine an infinitely more flexible shortcut version, hosted on GitHub and designed to allow anyone to create an action in a container to augment and connect their workflow."
GitHub users can use Actions to create their continuous distribution pipelines, and the company expects many to do so. And that's about the first thing most people will think of when they hear about this new project. GitHub's description of Shares in today's announcement is also perfect. "Easily build, package, publish, update, and deploy your project in any language – on GitHub or on an external system – without having to execute code yourself," the company writes. But it's more than that.
"I see CI / CD as a case of close use. It's so much more, "said Lambert. "And I think this will revolutionize DevOps because users will now create the best deployment workflows for specific applications and infrastructures, and these become the de facto standard shared on GitHub. […] It will do everything again we have done for open source DevOps for space and for all these different parts of this workflow ecosystem. "
This means that you can use it to send a Twilio text message whenever the user uses the "urgent problem" tag in your repository, for example. You can also write a command on a line that searches your repository with a basic grep command. Or run any other code you want because all you have to do to transform code from your repository to Action is to write a Docker file for GitHub to execute. "As long as there is a Docker file, we can create it, run it and connect it to your workflow," Lambert explained. If you do not want to write a Docker file, you also have a visual editor that you can use to create your workflow.
As Corey Wilkerson, Product Engineering Manager at GitHub also pointed out, many of these actions already exist in GitHub repositories. And there are now more than 96 million of these on GitHub, so a lot of potential actions will be available right off the bat.
With Actions, which is now in the limited public beta, developers can configure the workflow to create, package, publish, update, and deploy their code without having to run the code themselves.
Now developers can host these actions themselves – these are just Docker containers – but GitHub will also host and execute the corresponding code. And this includes developers of the free open source plan.
Over time – and Lambert seemed to be supportive – GitHub could also allow developers to sell their workflows and actions via the GitHub market. For now, this is not an option, but it is certainly something that society has thought of. Lambert also noted that this could be a way for open source developers who do not wish to create a business version of their tools (and the sales force that goes with them) to monetize their efforts.
While GitHub will make its own actions available to developers, it is an open platform and other members of the GitHub community can also bring their own actions.
GitHub will slowly open Developer Actions, starting with daily batches. You can register to access here.
In addition to Actions, GitHub also announced a number of new features on its platform. As the company pointed out during today's event, its mission is to make life easier for developers – most new features may be small, but they make it easier for developers.
So, what else's new? GitHub Connect, which connects the GitHub Enterprise silo to open source repositories on its public site, is now generally available, for example. GitHub Connect offers new features such as unified search, which can search for both open source code on the site and internal code, as well as a new unified identity feature that groups multiple accounts GitHub Business Managed by many companies (thanks, shadow IT) under one umbrella to improve billing, licensing and permissions.
The company also today launched three new courses in its Learning Lab facilitating the use of the service by developers, as well as a business version of Learning Lab for large companies.
Perhaps even more interesting for developers whose businesses use GitHub Enterprise is that it will now allow administrators to enable a new feature that will show the work of these developers in their public profile. Since GitHub is now the de facto CV of many developers, it's a big problem. Much of their work, after all, is not done in open source or in ancillary projects, but in the daily work of their companies.
The other new features announced by the company today are mainly about security. The new GitHub security advisory API, for example, makes it easier for developers to find threads in their code through automatic vulnerability scans, while new security vulnerability alerts for Java and .NET projects now extend existing GitHub alerts to both languages. If your developers are inclined to place their security tokens in public code, you can now rest easier because GitHub will also begin to scan all public repositories for known token formats. If he finds one, he will alert you and you can start creating one.
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