Motivation

As part of my dissertation project at university I needed a simple CI/CD pipeline to continually test and deploy my API to Azure.

Setup

Go to your project and create a new folder called .github, with another directory within called workflows. Inside this folder you want to create a yml file. I decided to name mine after my Azure resource:

ase-vertigo-prod-uksouth.yml

Now you need to paste in this basic workflow:

# Action name
name: ase-vertigo-prod-uksouth

# Branch triggers
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  ci:
    runs-on: windows-latest

    steps:
      # Checkout git repository
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
  • The name will show up in GitHub to show you which action you are running
  • The on section defines triggers for the workflow: on push to main and a manual trigger
  • And finally we will run on a Windows machine, and checkout the repository

Restore NuGet packages

Add the following step to restore all NuGet packages in the solution:

# Restore NuGet packages
- name: Restore
  run: dotnet restore

Build and publish the API project

Add the following step to build the API project and publish it to a set directory:

# Build and publish the API project
- name: Publish
  run: |
    cd ${{ env.API_PROJECT }}
    dotnet build --configuration Release
    dotnet publish -c Release -o ${{env.DOTNET_ROOT}}/myapp

Test the project

Add the following step to run a xUnit test project (in our case, some API integration tests):

# Test the API project
- name: Test
  run: |
    cd ${{ env.API_TEST_PROJECT }}
    dotnet test

Deploy to Azure App Service

Add the following code to take the published bundle and push it to Azure App Service:

# Deploy to Azure
- uses: azure/webapps-deploy@v2
  name: Deploy
  with:
    app-name: ${{ env.AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME }}
    publish-profile: ${{ secrets.AZURE_PUBLISH_PROFILE }}
    package: ${{env.DOTNET_ROOT}}/myapp

Environment variables

We need to add some environment variables at the top so our workflow knows which projects to build and what the Azure app service is called:

# Environment variables
env:
  API_PROJECT: Vertigo.API
  API_TEST_PROJECT: Vertigo.API.Test
  AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME: ase-vertigo-prod-uksouth

You can also add any extra environment variables if they are needed by the test project for example.

Configure Azure publish profile

Finally we need to get a private setting called an AZURE_PUBLISH_PROFILE from our app service to create an authenticated deployment.

Follow the steps here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/devops/dotnet-publish-github-action#add-publish-profile

Final steps

The workflow should then appear automatically in GitHub, and run on one of the triggers:

GitHub Actions

Complete Workflow

Here is the complete workflow with all the changes:

# Action name
name: ase-vertigo-prod-uksouth

# Branch triggers
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  workflow_dispatch:

# Environment variables
env:
  API_PROJECT: Vertigo.API
  API_TEST_PROJECT: Vertigo.API.Test
  AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME: ase-vertigo-prod-uksouth

jobs:
  ci:
    runs-on: windows-latest

    steps:
      # Checkout git repository
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2

      # Restore NuGet packages
      - name: Restore
        run: dotnet restore

      # Build and publish the API project
      - name: Publish
        run: |
          cd ${{ env.API_PROJECT }}
          dotnet build --configuration Release
          dotnet publish -c Release -o ${{env.DOTNET_ROOT}}/myapp          

      # Test the API project
      - name: Test
        run: |
          cd ${{ env.API_TEST_PROJECT }}
          dotnet test          

      # Deploy to Azure
      - uses: azure/webapps-deploy@v2
        name: Deploy
        with:
          app-name: ${{ env.AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME }}
          publish-profile: ${{ secrets.AZURE_PUBLISH_PROFILE }}
          package: ${{env.DOTNET_ROOT}}/myapp

References

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/devops/dotnet-publish-github-action