Prompt Almanac

Create intermediate Works with: Any AI

GitHub Actions CI Workflow Plan and Explanation

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Plan a continuous integration workflow and explain every step.

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Plan a GitHub Actions workflow for continuous integration. Language and build tool: [STACK]. Tests, linting and build commands: [COMMANDS]. Branches that should trigger checks: [BRANCHES]. Secrets or deployment targets needed, by name only: [SECRET_NAMES]. Time we are willing to wait for checks: [TIME_BUDGET].

Describe the workflow as jobs and steps in order: trigger (push, pull request), runner, caching, a test matrix if useful, and artefacts. Then give a draft YAML file with comments explaining each line, marked [VERIFY] because action names and versions change and must be checked in the Marketplace or documentation. Use least-privilege token permissions, pin third-party actions to a version or commit, never print secrets, and do not run untrusted pull request code with access to secrets [VERIFY the current guidance]. Do not include real secret values.

Include a test plan: open a pull request with a deliberate failing test, check that the workflow fails and blocks merging if branch protection is on, then fix it. Add a troubleshooting table (cache problems, permission errors, flaky tests) with what to check first, and ways to measure the workflow, such as median run time and failure rate: 3 failures in 40 runs is 7.5 percent. A beginner should understand why each step exists.

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Invented plan for a small web project. Trigger: on pull request and on push to main. Jobs: lint (1 minute), test (4 minutes), build (2 minutes). Steps for test: check out the code, set up the language version, restore the dependency cache, install dependencies, run tests. Permissions: read-only for contents. Third-party actions pinned to a version. No secrets used in pull request jobs from forks.
Expected run time: lint and test in parallel, then build: about 6 minutes in total. Measure after a month: failure rate, for example 3 failures in 40 runs is 7.5 percent, and median duration.

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