Creating actions

Actions are individual tasks that you can combine to create jobs and customize your workflow. You can create your own actions, or use and customize actions shared by the GitHub community.

This guide shows you the minimal steps required to build a Docker container action.

In this guide, you'll learn how to build a JavaScript action using the actions toolkit.

In this guide, you'll learn how to build a composite action.

You can create actions to perform tasks in your repository. Actions require a metadata file that uses YAML syntax.

When creating a Dockerfile for a Docker container action, you should be aware of how some Docker instructions interact with GitHub Actions and an action's metadata file.

You can use exit codes to set the status of an action. GitHub displays statuses to indicate passing or failing actions.

You can publish actions in GitHub Marketplace and share actions you've created with the GitHub community.

You can share an action or reusable workflow without publishing them publicly.

You can share an action or reusable workflow with your organization without publishing the action or workflow publicly.

You can leverage automation and open source best practices to release and maintain actions.

Learn how to develop an action to set up a CLI on GitHub Actions runners.