GitHub Actions to publish .net core artifacts

In this article, you'll find how easy and simple it is to generate your .net core artifacts (binaries) using Github Actions.

Adding your action

Github offers a set of predefined actions that you can use to leverage the needs of your deployment machine. Maybe you need to generate artifacts for a Windows machine or Mac or Linux and you want to generate all of them without having to build things separately. The easiest way to use continuous integration through Github Actions is via a workflow configuration file. Go to Actions and click new workflow:

Select the netcore action to build your .net core application:

This will open up the following YAML configuration file that we can edit to configure it according to the needs of our project:

Configuring your workflow file

The file below specifies building my .net core application using a specific folder and then I publish the binaries that will be available in the action's artifacts section. The package has been configured for Windows x64, .net core 3.1.6 and the package is self-contained (meaning that the .net core libraries will become part of the artifact).

name: my Project

on:
  push:
    branches: [ master ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ master ]

defaults:
  run:
    working-directory: myASPNETCoreApp

jobs:
  build:

    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
    - name: Setup .NET Core
      uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
      with:
        dotnet-version: 3.1.302
    - name: Install dependencies
      run: dotnet restore
    - name: Build Project
      run: dotnet build --configuration Release --no-restore
    - name: Test Project
      run: dotnet test --no-restore --verbosity normal
    - name: Publish
      run: dotnet publish --configuration Debug --framework netcoreapp3.1 --runtime win-x64 --self-contained true
    - name: Upload a Build Artifact
      uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2.1.1
      with:
        name: myproject-win-64
        path: /home/runner/work/myproject/myproject/myASPNETCoreApp/bin/Debug/netcoreapp3.1/win-x64/publish/

Once completed, you will see the actions taking place on every commit. Below is a sample of execution for different changes in my project. Note that in the image below, the artifacts (binaries) of my project are attached to the output of the action's workflow.

We can click on the commit and explore the output of the build and drill into the build log for more details:

If we drill into the build log, we will be able to find the location of the machine where the artifacts are generated so we can zip them up. I've highlighted it in red and it should match the path mentioned in my YAML file.

One thing to take into consideration is that this is not for free and there is a cost implied if you go over the limit. This build happens on a Linux machine (as defined in the YAML file) and there is a cost for using this machine. There is a very healthy limit and you can specify the amount of money you want to spend. The default is $0, so there is no risk of getting billed accidentally. More info here.

Source code can be find here:

- https://github.com/JordiCorbilla/github-actions