Ravindra BagaleCourses & study guides

Chapter 9: GitHub Actions Hands-On

9.3 Jobs, steps, needs and permissions

By Last updated:

  • Steps in one job share a workspace on the same runner (roughly one machine session).
  • Separate jobs can run in parallel; use needs: to sequence (test then build).
  • Start with least privilege permissions: — default tokens should not get write access you do not need.
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: pytest -q

  build:
    needs: test
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: docker build -t badge-api:${{ github.sha }} .

What you see: On a PR, only test runs (if you gate build with if:). On main, test then build.