CI/CD with GitHub Actions

How to set up a GitHub Actions workflow that builds and deploys Project Broadsheet automatically on every push, and how to trigger scheduled rebuilds for time-sensitive content.

Cloudflare Pages and Netlify already build and deploy your site automatically when you push to main. GitHub Actions is useful when you need more control: running tests before deploying, triggering scheduled rebuilds, or integrating with external services.

The simplest workflow: push-to-deploy

If you are using Cloudflare Pages or Netlify, push-to-deploy is already configured through their dashboard, so you do not need a GitHub Actions workflow for basic deploys. Skip ahead to scheduled rebuilds if that is all you need.

Manual deploy with GitHub Actions (Cloudflare Pages)

If you want GitHub Actions to control the deploy step (for example, to add a linting or build-check gate), create .github/workflows/deploy.yml:

name: Deploy

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  build-and-deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: "20"
          cache: "npm"

      - run: npm ci

      - run: npm run build

      - uses: cloudflare/wrangler-action@v3
        with:
          apiToken: $
          accountId: $
          command: pages deploy _site --project-name=my-publication

Add CF_API_TOKEN and CF_ACCOUNT_ID as repository secrets under Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions in your GitHub repo.

Scheduled rebuilds

A scheduled rebuild is useful when you use draft: true combined with a future date field. The article stays hidden until you remove the draft flag, but you can queue rebuilds to check daily:

name: Scheduled rebuild

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 8 * * *"   # Every day at 08:00 UTC
  workflow_dispatch:       # Also allow manual trigger

jobs:
  rebuild:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: "20"
          cache: "npm"
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run build
      - uses: cloudflare/wrangler-action@v3
        with:
          apiToken: $
          accountId: $
          command: pages deploy _site --project-name=my-publication

The workflow_dispatch trigger adds a Run workflow button in the GitHub Actions tab so you can trigger a rebuild manually without pushing a commit.

Running a build check on pull requests

To verify the site builds before merging a PR:

name: Build check

on:
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: "20"
          cache: "npm"
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run build

This catches broken front matter, missing data references, or template errors before they reach production.

Required secrets

For Netlify deployments, use NETLIFY_SITE_ID and NETLIFY_AUTH_TOKEN with the netlify/actions/cli action instead.

What to do next

• Drafts and scheduling for the workflow this CI/CD setup enables.
• Deploy to Cloudflare Pages for the dashboard-based deploy setup.
• Environment variables for secrets available to the build.