30 Continuous Integration Preview

Introduction

In this lab, you will create a minimal Continuous Integration (CI) job and watch it run automatically after you push a commit.

This lab is designed as a preview. If you run out of time, stop at any point. We will cover CI in depth in the next session.

Prerequisites

You should have:

• the course lab repository cloned locally
• Git working on your machine
• a GitHub account and access to a repository you can push to

Repository setup

For this lab, you must work in your own copy of the repository on GitHub.

• Create a fork of the instructor repository under your GitHub account: https://github.com/codyzu/res507-2025-2026-work.
• Clone your fork locally.
• Push all changes to your fork, not to the instructor repository.

You need a GitHub account to complete this lab.
If you do not already have one, create it before continuing.

During this lab, you will create new files and directories yourself.
For example, the scripts/ directory does not exist initially and will be created as part of the exercises.

Create a CI preview branch

Create a new branch for this lab:

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git switch -c feature/ci-preview

Confirm your status:

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git status

Add a script that CI can run

Create a new script file:

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mkdir -p scripts

Create scripts/ci-preview.sh with the following content:

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#!/usr/bin/env bash
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set -euo pipefail
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echo "CI preview: hello from $(uname -s)"
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echo "Current directory:"
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pwd
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echo "Repository status:"
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git status
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echo "Done."

Make the script executable:

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chmod +x scripts/ci-preview.sh

Run it locally to confirm it works:

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./scripts/ci-preview.sh

Add a minimal CI configuration

Add a minimal GitHub Actions workflow that runs after every push.

GitHub Actions workflow

Create the workflow directory:

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mkdir -p .github/workflows

Create .github/workflows/ci.yml:

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name: CI Preview
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on:
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  push:
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jobs:
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  preview:
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    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
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    steps:
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      - name: Checkout
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        uses: actions/checkout@v4
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      - name: Run preview script
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        run: ./scripts/ci-preview.sh

Commit and push

Stage your changes:

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git add scripts .github/workflows/ci.yml

Commit:

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git commit -m "Add CI preview job"

Push your branch to your remote:

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git push -u origin feature/ci-preview

Observe the CI run

Open your repository on GitHub and go to the Actions tab.

You should see a workflow run named CI Preview for your branch.

Open the job logs and confirm you can find these lines:

• CI preview: hello from
• Repository status:
• Done.

Troubleshooting

CI cannot find the script

Confirm the script exists and is executable:

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ls -la scripts

Permission denied when running the script

Re-apply executable permissions and commit the change:

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chmod +x scripts/ci-preview.sh
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git add scripts/ci-preview.sh
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git commit -m "Make CI preview script executable"
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git push

No CI run appears after pushing

Confirm you pushed to the correct remote and branch:

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git remote -v
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git branch --show-current

If you are using GitHub Actions, confirm the workflow file exists:

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ls -la .github/workflows

Wrap-up

You have created a minimal CI job that runs automatically after a push.

In the next session, you will expand this into a real pipeline with checks like formatting, linting, and tests.