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How to Deploy using GitHub Actions

Validated on 20 Aug 2024 • Last edited on 17 Apr 2025

App Platform is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering that allows developers to publish code directly to DigitalOcean servers without worrying about the underlying infrastructure.

Using GitHub Actions and an app spec, you can configure and deploy your apps and app images directly from your GitHub repository without directly interacting with DigitalOcean’s control panel or API. GitHub Actions is a GitHub feature that allows you to automate many aspects of your software development using workflows.

The article documents three different GitHub Action example workflows:

Deploy an app from a GitHub repository to App Platform.
Build an image of your app using Docker and GitHub Container Registry, and then deploy the image to App Platform.
Deploy a unique app for each pull request in your repository so that you can test your changes before merging them into your main branch.

Prerequisites

To use the App Platform deploy workflow, you must:

Have a GitHub repository that contains your app’s source code.
Have a DigitalOcean API token in your repository’s secrets collection with permissions to read and write to App Platform. The API token authenticates your workflow’s deployment to App Platform.
Authenticate your GitHub account with App Platform by deploying an app via the control panel or API. Deploying an app grants App Platform permissions to access your GitHub account. You only need to do this once and the app can be a sample app.

Add a Workflow to Your Repository

To set up a GitHub Actions workflow that deploys your app to App Platform, open your app’s GitHub repository and then click the Actions tab. Below the Get started with GitHub Actions header, click the set up a workflow yourself link. This opens the GitHub Actions editor.

In the editor, paste one of the following workflows into the editor, change the token values as needed, and then commit the changes to your repository.

Deploy an App

This workflow runs after every push to the main branch of the repository. The workflow checks out the repository’s code, and then deploys the app using the digitalocean/app_action/deploy@v2 action and your API token.

deploy-app.yaml

name: Update App

on:
 push:
   branches: [main]

permissions:
  contents: read

jobs:
 deploy-app:
   runs-on: ubuntu-latest
   steps:
     - name: Checkout repository
       uses: actions/checkout@v4
     - name: Deploy the app
       uses: digitalocean/app_action/deploy@v2
       with:
         token: ${{ secrets.YOUR_DIGITALOCEAN_ACCESS_TOKEN_VARIABLE_NAME }}

Build and Deploy an Image

This workflow runs after every push to the main branch of the repository. This workflow checkouts out the repository, builds an image of your app using a Dockerfile, pushes the image to GitHub Container Registry, and then deploys the image to App Platform.

In addition to a DigitalOcean API token, the workflow also requires a Dockerfile in your repository. The Dockerfile defines the image’s contents and configuration.

deploy-image.yaml

name: Build, Push and Deploy a Docker Image

on:
 push:
   branches: [main]

permissions:
  contents: read
  packages: write

jobs:
 build-push-deploy-image:
   runs-on: ubuntu-latest
   steps:
     - name: Checkout repository
       uses: actions/checkout@v4
     - name: Log in to the Container registry
       uses: docker/[email protected]
       with:
         registry: ghcr.io
         username: ${{ github.actor }}
         password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
     - name: Build and push Docker image
       id: push
       uses: docker/[email protected]
       with:
         context: .
         push: true
         tags: ghcr.io/${{ github.repository }}:latest
     - name: Deploy the app
       uses: digitalocean/app_action/deploy@v2
       env:
         SAMPLE_DIGEST: ${{ steps.push.outputs.digest }}
       with:
         token: ${{ secrets.YOUR_DIGITALOCEAN_ACCESS_TOKEN_VARIABLE_NAME }}

Preview Pull Requests Before Deploying

This workflow runs when you open a pull request in your repository. The workflow checks out the repository’s code, deploys the app to App Platform, and then creates a comment in the pull request with a link to the deployed app. The workflow includes a link to the build logs and the deploy logs in the comment if the deployment fails.

deploy-preview.yaml

name: App Platform Preview

on:
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

permissions:
  contents: read
  pull-requests: write

jobs:
  test:
    name: preview
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Deploy the app
        id: deploy
        uses: digitalocean/app_action/deploy@v2
        with:
          deploy_pr_preview: "true"
          token: ${{ secrets.YOUR_DIGITALOCEAN_ACCESS_TOKEN }}
      - uses: actions/github-script@v7
        env:
          BUILD_LOGS: ${{ steps.deploy.outputs.build_logs }}
          DEPLOY_LOGS: ${{ steps.deploy.outputs.deploy_logs }}
        with:
          script: |
            const { BUILD_LOGS, DEPLOY_LOGS } = process.env
            github.rest.issues.createComment({
              issue_number: context.issue.number,
              owner: context.repo.owner,
              repo: context.repo.repo,
              body: `🚀🚀🚀 The app was successfully deployed at ${{ fromJson(steps.deploy.outputs.app).live_url }}. [1]`
            })
      - uses: actions/github-script@v7
        if: failure()
        with:
          script: |
            github.rest.issues.createComment({
              issue_number: context.issue.number,
              owner: context.repo.owner,
              repo: context.repo.repo,
              body: `The app failed to be deployed. Logs can be found [here](https://github.com/${{ github.repository }}/actions/runs/${{ github.run_id }}).
              ## Logs
              <details>
              <summary>Build logs</summary> [2]
              \`\\
              ${BUILD_LOGS}
              \`\\
              </details>
              <details>
              <summary>Deploy logs</summary> [3]
              \`\\
              ${DEPLOY_LOGS}
              \`\\
              </details>`
            })

This second action deletes the preview app upon merging or closing the pull request.

delete-preview.yaml

name: Delete Preview

on:
  pull_request:
    types: [ closed ]

jobs:
  closed:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: delete preview app
        uses: digitalocean/app_action/delete@v2
        with:
          from_pr_preview: "true"
          ignore_not_found: "true"
          token: ${{ secrets.YOUR_DIGITALOCEAN_ACCESS_TOKEN }}