Use of artifacts in azure github action for nodejs

Question

When we connect Github with Azure for automatic nodejs release to azure web app service, we see workflow created for the build and release in .github/workflows.

There we see artifact uploading and downloading again in two separate jobs namely build, deploy.

# Docs for the Azure Web Apps Deploy action: https://github.com/Azure/webapps-deploy
# More GitHub Actions for Azure: https://github.com/Azure/actions

name: Build and deploy Node.js app to Azure Web App - nestjs

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2

    - name: Set up Node.js version
      uses: actions/setup-node@v1
      with:
        node-version: '14.x'

    - name: npm install, build, and test
      run: |
        npm install
        npm run build --if-present
        npm run test --if-present
    - name: Upload artifact for deployment job
      uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2
      with:
        name: node-app
        path: .

  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: build
    environment:
      name: 'production'
      url: ${{ steps.deploy-to-webapp.outputs.webapp-url }}

    steps:
    - name: Download artifact from build job
      uses: actions/download-artifact@v2
      with:
        name: node-app

    - name: 'Deploy to Azure Web App'
      id: deploy-to-webapp
      uses: azure/webapps-deploy@v2
      with:
        app-name: '**'
        slot-name: '**'
        publish-profile: ${{ ** }}
        package: .

Here I don't understand why we need to upload and download artifact? Why can't we directly publish the build without involving artifacts here?

I have modified the workflow as follows:

# Docs for the Azure Web Apps Deploy action: https://github.com/Azure/webapps-deploy
# More GitHub Actions for Azure: https://github.com/Azure/actions

name: Build and deploy Node.js app to Azure Web App - nestjs

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment:
      name: 'production'
      url: ${{ steps.deploy-to-webapp.outputs.webapp-url }}
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2

    - name: Set up Node.js version
      uses: actions/setup-node@v1
      with:
        node-version: '14.x'

    - name: npm install, build, and test
      run: |
        npm install
        npm run build --if-present
        npm run test --if-present
        
    - name: 'Deploy to Azure Web App'
      id: deploy-to-webapp
      uses: azure/webapps-deploy@v2
      with:
        app-name: '**'
        slot-name: '**'
        publish-profile: ${{ *** }}
        package: .

The above modification worked fine and saved my actions minutes due to artifacts.

Veerle · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-19 14:08:26Z

3

You can combine the build and deploy jobs in your YAML file as you did in your second example. That will deploy your app to Azure App Service perfectly fine and will save you a considerable amount of time.

But if you do separate the build and deploy jobs, you need to upload and download the artifacts. Thats because jobs are in completely isolated environments from each other, and you need artifacts to move files between these environments.

So why would you want to separate the build and the deployment job?

Deployment is often a more sensitive job than other jobs in the pipeline. You want to treat it with extra care. Usually you will perform some tests (e.g. with npm run test) before the deployment job to make sure that whatever you build is working accordingly. If one or more tests fail, the build job will fail too. If you make your deployment job dependent on the build job (with needs: build in your YAML file) you will prevent your broken build from being deployed.

If you combine build and deploy in the job, you're letting go of this failsafe.

answered Jun 19, 2021 at 14:08

Veerle

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3 Comments

Ayush P Gupta Over a year ago

I don't see any harm in combining as if any of the above steps fails the whole job would fail. That's why i kept the deploy step to last

Veerle Over a year ago

Yea I agree that in such a small pipeline there is no practical harm in combining: there's probably more overhead than it's worth. But if you have a large and complex pipeline you might take that overhead just because it makes more sense from a logical perspective (it's easy to see which job failed). And, to go one step further, if you have a 'build once, deploy to many' strategy you're better off separating because than one deployment fail won't harm the other(s).

Ayush P Gupta Over a year ago

Yup i got your point now. Thanks for taking time to explain so briefly

Doris Lv · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-06 07:13:06Z

0

Here is the definition of Artifacts from official document:

Artifacts allow you to share data between jobs in a workflow and store data once that workflow has completed.

You could have a look at this article: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/guides/storing-workflow-data-as-artifacts#about-workflow-artifacts

answered Apr 6, 2021 at 7:13

Doris Lv

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