GitHub Actions is a CI/CD and automation platform built into GitHub. It runs YAML-defined workflows stored in a repository's .github/workflows directory, triggered by events like pushes, pull requests, or issue creation. Workflows execute jobs on hosted runners, GitHub-managed virtual machines running Ubuntu, Windows, or macOS, with no manual intervention required.
This tutorial builds a concrete workflow from scratch: a label-new-issue.yml file that fires on the issues.opened event, runs on ubuntu-latest, and uses scoped permissions (issues: write, contents: read) to automatically tag new issues. The walkthrough covers the three required YAML sections, name, on, and jobs, and explains why permissions are scoped at the job level rather than globally. That specificity is what makes this worth reading instead of skimming.
The series is in its third season, with companion video episodes at gh.io/gfb. A hands-on skill exercise in the github/skills repository extends the tutorial for readers who want to go beyond copy-pasting. The next logical step is the full trigger reference at docs.github.com, which lists every event that can fire a workflow.
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