Workflow file syntax

Background

These two “Hello World” workflow demos will show the basics of a workflow file.

Hello World minimal

The first demo shows the minimum workflow to print “Hello World”.

https://hub.allspice.io/Actions-demos/.allspice/workflows/00-Hello-world-minimal.yml

name: Workflow-hello-world

on: 
  push:
  issues:
    # Trigger on issue open, close, or reopen
    types: [opened, closed, reopened]

jobs:
  Job-Hello-World:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: "Print Hello World 🔎" 
        run: echo "Hello World"      

Hello World with comments

The second demo shows a minimal workflow, but with comments to explain each part of the YAML file.

https://hub.allspice.io/Actions-demos/.allspice/workflows/01-Hello-world-commented.yml

# This is a basic workflow to help you get started with Actions
# Lines beginning with a `#` are comments, and only intended to help reviewers understand the script
# Actions documentation: https://learn.allspice.io/docs/actions-cicd
# This file is written in YAML syntax, to learn more about YAML visit https://learn.allspice.io/docs/yaml

# Workflow name
name: Hello-world-commented

# Workflow triggers on
# To learn more about triggers, visit https://learn.allspice.io/docs/actions-triggers
on: 
  # Workflow is triggered if any of the following events occur
  # i.e. Logical OR of triggers, i.e. trigger on push or issues

  # Trigger on push
  push:

  # Trigger on issues
  issues:
    # Trigger on issue open, close, or reopen
    types: [opened, closed, reopened]


# Workflow jobs
# Jobs run in parallel by default
# To run jobs in sequence, create multiple steps in a job
jobs:

  # Job name
  Job-Hello-World:
    
    # Set up server container using Ubuntu operating system (Debian based Linux distribution)
    # To learn more about Ubuntu, visit https://ubuntu.com/
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    # Job steps
    # Steps run in sequence on the runner machine
    # To make steps run in parallel, create multiple jobs
    steps:

      # Job steps start with - name: "Step name"
      - name: "Print Hello World 🔎" 
        
        # run keyword specifies the shell command to run
        # The shell command is a simple echo command to print "Hello World"
        # The command is run in the runner machine
        # To learn more about shell commands, visit https://www.shellscript.sh/
        run: echo "Hello World"

      - name: "Multiline shell command 🔎"
        
        # The shell command is a simple echo command to print two lines of text
        # The | pipe character is used to specify a multiline command
        run: |
          echo "This is the first line"
          echo "This is the second line"

Running the demos

To run the demos:

• Migrate actions demo to new repo

• Enable actions in repo

• Trigger repo

• Visit repo Actions tab

• Click on workflows

• View the results

Here are step-by-step instructions

Trigger repo workflows

To trigger these workflows, create a new issue.

View the results

Click on the job steps to see Hello World

If you’re having issues, don’t hesitate to ask for help at support@allspice.io

Next

Actions demo - Generate a BOM with a re-usable action