First Steps: Development

Development

After selecting a Development product, the editor creates a GitHub Actions workflow graph with a GitHub Actions Start node. This node triggers on GitHub events such as push, pull_request, or workflow_dispatch.

Build a simple workflow

Let’s build a workflow that checks out your repository and runs a script. Add an actions/checkout node and a Run Script node, then connect them as shown below.

The actions/checkout node clones your repository into the runner workspace, and the Run Script node prints "Hello from GitHub Actions!".

Save Graph

Save the graph to your repository under .github/workflows/ by clicking the save button **** in the left panel (or press Command + S CommandS Control + S ControlS ).

Save the file as .github/workflows/my-workflow.act inside your repository.

Deploy to GitHub

To run your action graph on GitHub, you need a workflow YAML file that invokes the actionforge/action action. See the GitHub Actions Workflow guide for the full setup.

Test locally

You can also test your GitHub Actions workflow locally before pushing to GitHub. The actrun CLI automatically detects GitHub Actions workflow graphs and sets up a simulated environment:

actrun .github/workflows/my-workflow.act

For the full local runner setup (including GitHub token configuration and workspace mapping), see the Debug Sessions guide.

Congratulations! You have successfully built your first GitHub Actions workflow graph. 🎉