lab-06-github-actions

permalink	/labs/lab-06-github-actions/
title	Lab 06: GitHub Actions CI/CD
description	Explore the code-quality-scan.yml workflow, run it via GitHub Actions, and view SARIF results in GitHub Security tab.

Lab 06: GitHub Actions CI/CD

Duration	Level	Prerequisites
30 min	Intermediate	Lab 05

Learning Objectives

• Understand the code-quality-scan.yml GitHub Actions workflow structure
• Run the scan workflow manually via workflow dispatch
• View SARIF results in the GitHub Security tab
• Filter findings by severity, category, and tool
• Understand the matrix strategy for multi-app scanning

Prerequisites

• Completed Lab 05: Coverage Analysis
• Your fork of code-quality-scan-demo-app pushed to GitHub
• GitHub Advanced Security enabled on the repository (free for public repos)

Exercises

Exercise 1: Explore the Scan Workflow

Working Directory: Run the following commands from the code-quality-scan-demo-app repository root.

Open the central scan workflow file:

Get-Content .github/workflows/code-quality-scan.yml

Key workflow sections:

Section	Purpose
on:	Triggers: push to main, pull_request, and workflow_dispatch (manual)
strategy.matrix	Scans all 5 apps: app: [001, 002, 003, 004, 005]
steps — Lint	Runs the per-language linter for the target app
steps — Complexity	Runs Lizard and converts to SARIF
steps — Duplication	Runs jscpd across the app
steps — Coverage	Runs tests with coverage and converts to SARIF
steps — Upload	Uploads all SARIF files to GitHub Security tab

The workflow uses a matrix strategy to scan all 5 apps in parallel:

strategy:
  matrix:
    app: [001, 002, 003, 004, 005]
  fail-fast: false

Each matrix job uploads SARIF with a unique category prefix: code-quality-scan/${{ matrix.app }}.

Exercise 2: Run the Workflow Manually

Trigger the scan workflow using the GitHub CLI:

gh workflow run code-quality-scan.yml --ref main

Monitor the workflow run:

gh run list --workflow=code-quality-scan.yml --limit 1

Wait for the run to complete (this takes 3–5 minutes depending on the runners):

$runId = gh run list --workflow=code-quality-scan.yml --limit 1 --json databaseId --jq ".[0].databaseId"
gh run watch $runId

Exercise 3: View Workflow Results

Once the workflow completes, check the status:

gh run view $runId

View the logs for a specific matrix job:

gh run view $runId --log | Select-Object -First 100

Exercise 4: Explore the GitHub Security Tab

Open the GitHub Security tab in your browser:

$repoUrl = gh repo view --json url --jq ".url"
Start-Process "$repoUrl/security/code-scanning"

Or navigate manually: Repository → Security → Code scanning alerts.

The Security tab shows all SARIF findings uploaded by the workflow:

• Code scanning alerts — findings from linters, complexity, and duplication
• Severity filtering — filter by Error, Warning, or Note
• Tool filtering — filter by ESLint, Ruff, Lizard, jscpd, etc.
• Category filtering — filter by code-quality-scan/001 through code-quality-scan/005

Exercise 5: Filter Findings

In the GitHub Security tab, practice filtering:

By severity:

• Click Error to see only critical findings (CCN > 20, coverage < 50%)
• Click Warning to see moderate findings (CCN 11–20, coverage 50–79%)

By tool:

• Filter by tool name to see findings from a specific scanner

By category:

• Use the category filter to see findings for a specific demo app

Exercise 6: Examine a Finding Detail

Click on any finding to see its detail view:

• Rule description — what the rule checks for
• Location — file path and line number
• Remediation guidance — how to fix the issue
• Help documentation — link to the rule's documentation

The SARIF help.markdown field is rendered here, providing context-specific remediation guidance. This is why SARIF enrichment (adding help.markdown, properties.tags, and partialFingerprints) is important — it makes the triage experience richer.

Verification Checkpoint

Verify your work before continuing:

• You triggered the code-quality-scan.yml workflow successfully
• The workflow completed with all 5 matrix jobs
• You can view SARIF findings in the GitHub Security tab
• You filtered findings by severity, tool, and category
• You examined the detail view of at least one finding

Summary

The code-quality-scan.yml workflow automates the entire 4-tool scanning architecture in GitHub Actions. Using a matrix strategy, it scans all 5 demo apps in parallel and uploads results to the GitHub Security tab via SARIF. This provides a centralized view of all code quality findings — lint errors, complexity warnings, duplication, and coverage gaps — in a single dashboard.

Key takeaways:

• Matrix strategy enables parallel scanning across multiple apps
• SARIF upload via codeql-action/upload-sarif@v4 integrates with GitHub Security
• Category prefixes separate findings by app for easier triage
• Enriched SARIF (help.markdown, tags, fingerprints) improves the triage experience

Next Steps

Proceed to Lab 07: Remediation (GitHub) or go back to try Lab 06-ADO: ADO Pipelines CI/CD.