CI/CD Pipeline with GitHub Actions

CI And CD With GitHub Actions

This guide explains how CI runs in GitHub Actions and how CD flows through ArgoCD and the docs image build.

Step 1: Review the workflows

These workflows live in .github/workflows/:

• ci.yaml runs pre-commit, kubeconform validation, a docs build check, and pushes the docs image on changes under docs/.
• cluster-smoke.yaml is a manual and scheduled workflow that connects to the tailnet and runs kubectl get nodes and kubectl get pods -A.

Step 2: Configure GitHub secrets

Add these repository secrets for the tailnet-enabled workflow:

• TS_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID
• TS_OAUTH_SECRET
• KUBECONFIG_B64

KUBECONFIG_B64 should be a base64-encoded kubeconfig that can reach the cluster API on the tailnet.

Step 3: Understand what each check covers

CI validation focuses on the Kubernetes and GitOps manifests in this repo.

Area	Coverage	Workflow
apps/	YAML lint, schema validation (excluding app.yaml)	ci.yaml
infrastructure/	YAML lint, schema validation	ci.yaml
bootstrap/	YAML lint, schema validation	ci.yaml
docs/	Docusaurus build and image push	ci.yaml

Step 4: Trigger a cluster smoke test

Run the workflow manually when you want to validate the live cluster health over Tailscale.

• Workflow: Cluster Smoke in GitHub Actions
• Checks: kubectl get nodes, kubectl get pods -A, and ArgoCD app status

The workflow also runs every six hours via a scheduled trigger.

Step 5: Rely on ArgoCD for CD

ArgoCD watches this repo and applies changes via ApplicationSets. GitHub Actions validates and builds artifacts, while ArgoCD handles the deployment and reconciliation in-cluster.