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:
main branch.To use the App Platform deploy workflow, you must:
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.
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.
name: Update App
on:
push:
branches: [main]
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 }}
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.
name: Build, Push and Deploy a Docker Image
on:
push:
branches: [main]
jobs:
build-push-deploy-image:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
permissions:
contents: read
packages: write
id-token: write
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 }}
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.
name: App Platform Preview
on:
pull_request:
branches: [main]
permissions:
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.
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 }}