GitHub Actions for Cloud & DevOps Engineers¶
Duration: 6–8 weeks · Difficulty: Beginner → Expert
Production Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) with GitHub Actions — design workflows, operate runners, ship containers, deploy to Kubernetes and cloud, automate Terraform, and harden the supply chain.
Course status
Full rewrite (2026-08-03) to the academy tutorial bar used by Linux and Jenkins: topic-specific labs under ~/rebash-github-actions/module-NN, Excalidraw diagrams under docs/assets/excalidraw/, interview answers with ??? success "Reveal answer", and workflow YAML with ${{ ... }} wrapped in ... in docs. Curriculum follows the REBASH GitHub Actions technology prompt (16 modules). Regenerate diagrams with python3 scripts/generate-excalidraw-svg.py. Start with CI/CD Fundamentals.
1. Course overview¶
Purpose¶
Treat delivery as software: versioned workflows under .github/workflows/, reviewable checks on pull requests, OpenID Connect (OIDC) to cloud (no long-lived keys), reusable actions and workflows, environment-gated production deploys, and supply-chain controls (CodeQL, Trivy, SHA pinning).
Target roles¶
DevOps · Cloud · Platform · SRE · DevSecOps · Software Engineer
Prerequisites¶
- Git (required)
- Docker · Kubernetes · Terraform for later modules
- Basic cloud knowledge (AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud)
Learning arc¶
| Phase | Modules | Level |
|---|---|---|
| Foundations | 1–2 | Beginner |
| Core CI | 3–6 | Intermediate |
| Delivery & platforms | 7–10 | Intermediate → Advanced |
| Hardening & scale | 11–14 | Advanced |
| Production & ops | 15–16 | Advanced → Expert |
Capstone outcomes¶
Reusable workflows · self-hosted runners · OIDC · multi-cloud · Kubernetes · Terraform automation · security scanning · release automation · environment-gated production · troubleshooting runbooks
2. Modules¶
| Module | Focus | Tutorial | Lab path |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CI/CD fundamentals | Fundamentals | ~/rebash-github-actions/module-01 |
| 2 | Actions basics | Workflows · jobs · steps | ~/rebash-github-actions/module-02 |
| 3 | Runners | Hosted & self-hosted | ~/rebash-github-actions/module-03 |
| 4 | Workflow syntax | Matrix & reusable | ~/rebash-github-actions/module-04 |
| 5 | Secrets & variables | Secrets · OIDC | ~/rebash-github-actions/module-05 |
| 6 | Artifacts & caching | Artifacts & cache | ~/rebash-github-actions/module-06 |
| 7 | Docker pipelines | Docker · GHCR | ~/rebash-github-actions/module-07 |
| 8 | Kubernetes | Deploy with Actions | ~/rebash-github-actions/module-08 |
| 9 | Terraform | Plan & apply | ~/rebash-github-actions/module-09 |
| 10 | Cloud deployments | AWS · Azure · GCP | ~/rebash-github-actions/module-10 |
| 11 | Security | Supply chain | ~/rebash-github-actions/module-11 |
| 12 | Testing | Tests & gates | ~/rebash-github-actions/module-12 |
| 13 | Releases | Tags & releases | ~/rebash-github-actions/module-13 |
| 14 | Reusable components | Composite & workflows | ~/rebash-github-actions/module-14 |
| 15 | Production | Environments & CD | ~/rebash-github-actions/module-15 |
| 16 | Troubleshooting | Debug & optimise | ~/rebash-github-actions/module-16 |
3. Practice¶
Diagrams¶
Excalidraw SVGs live under docs/assets/excalidraw/ — including gha-architecture.svg, gha-workflow-lifecycle.svg, gha-terraform-pipeline.svg, gha-multi-cloud.svg, gha-security.svg, gha-testing.svg, gha-release-pipeline.svg, gha-reusable-components.svg, gha-production.svg, and gha-troubleshooting.svg.