lab-07.md

permalink	/labs/lab-07
title	Lab 07 - Setting Up GitHub Actions Pipelines
description	Review the workshop GitHub Actions workflows, enable Actions in your repository, trigger workflows by opening a pull request, and monitor execution in the Actions tab.

Overview

Duration	40 minutes
Level	Intermediate
Prerequisites	Lab 00 through Lab 06

Learning Objectives

By the end of this lab, you will be able to:

• Understand the structure of the workshop GitHub Actions workflows
• Enable GitHub Actions and configure workflow permissions in your repository
• Create a branch, make changes, and open a pull request to trigger workflows
• Monitor workflow execution and review logs in the Actions tab

Exercises

Exercise 7.1: Review Workflow Files

Explore the four workflow files included in the repository to understand what each one does.

1. Open .github/workflows/security-scan.yml in VS Code. This is the most comprehensive workflow in the set.

2. Identify the key structural elements:

   Element	Value	Purpose
   on.push.branches	[main]	Triggers on pushes to main
   on.pull_request.branches	[main]	Triggers on PRs targeting main
   permissions.security-events	write	Allows SARIF upload to Security tab
   jobs	Multiple jobs	SCA, SAST, IaC, Container, DAST scans

3. Locate the SARIF upload step within one of the jobs. It uses github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v4 to send findings to the GitHub Security tab.

4. Review the remaining three workflows briefly:

   Workflow File	Name	Trigger	SARIF Category
   accessibility-scan.yml	Accessibility Scan	PR + weekly schedule	accessibility-scan/
   code-quality.yml	Code Quality	PR only	code-quality/coverage/
   finops-cost-gate.yml	FinOps Cost Gate	PR (infra file changes)	finops-finding/

5. Note that all four workflows upload SARIF to the Security tab. The different category values ensure findings are grouped by domain.

Exercise 7.2: Enable GitHub Actions

Confirm that GitHub Actions is enabled and permissions are configured correctly for your forked repository.

1. Navigate to your repository on GitHub.
2. Go to Settings → Actions → General.
3. Under Actions permissions, select Allow all actions and reusable workflows. This is required because the workflows reference third-party actions such as anchore/sbom-action and github/codeql-action.
4. Scroll to Workflow permissions.
5. Select Read and write permissions for the GITHUB_TOKEN. The workflows need write access to upload SARIF files to the Security tab.
6. Check Allow GitHub Actions to create and approve pull requests if available.
7. Click Save to apply the changes.

Tip

If your organization enforces stricter policies, you may need to ask an administrator to allow the specific actions used in these workflows.

Exercise 7.3: Trigger Workflows with a Pull Request

Create a branch, make a small change, and open a pull request to trigger the workflow runs.

1. Open a terminal in VS Code and create a new branch:

   git checkout -b feature/test-pipeline

2. Open sample-app/src/app/page.tsx and make a visible change. For example, add a comment at the top of the file:

   // Test change to trigger pipeline workflows

3. Stage, commit, and push the change:

   git add sample-app/src/app/page.tsx
   git commit -m "test: trigger pipeline scan"
   git push -u origin feature/test-pipeline

4. Open your repository in a browser. GitHub should display a banner suggesting you create a pull request for the recently pushed branch.

5. Click Compare & pull request.

6. Set the target branch to main, add a descriptive title such as "Test pipeline trigger", and click Create pull request.

Exercise 7.4: Monitor Workflow Execution

Watch the workflows run and explore the execution logs.

1. In your pull request, scroll down to the checks section. You should see workflow runs starting to appear.
2. Click the Actions tab at the top of the repository page.
3. Locate the triggered workflow runs. You should see at least the Security Scan and Code Quality workflows running (the Accessibility Scan and FinOps Cost Gate may also trigger depending on your changes).

4. Click a running workflow to view its details. You will see each job listed with its current status (queued, in progress, or completed).

5. Click a specific job to expand its step-by-step logs. Look for:

   • Checkout and setup steps completing first
   • Scanning tools executing and producing output
   • SARIF upload steps sending results to the Security tab

6. Wait for all workflows to complete. Green checkmarks indicate successful completion. If a workflow fails, click it to review the error logs.

Important

Do not merge or close this pull request yet. Lab 08 requires the workflow results to be available in the Security tab.

Verification Checkpoint

Before proceeding, verify:

• You reviewed the structure of security-scan.yml and identified trigger events, jobs, and the SARIF upload step
• GitHub Actions is enabled with "Allow all actions" and "Read and write permissions"
• You created a branch, pushed a change, and opened a pull request targeting main
• At least two workflows were triggered by the pull request
• You can navigate to the Actions tab and view workflow logs

Next Steps

Proceed to Lab 08 to explore the uploaded SARIF results in the GitHub Security tab.