Steps: uses and run

Building blocks of a job

Steps run sequentially on the same runner and share its filesystem. A uses step runs an action (from the Marketplace, another repository, or a local path) configured with with: inputs; a run step executes shell commands (bash on Linux and macOS by default, with set -e behaviour so a failing command fails the step). Steps can set env, if conditions, id for referencing outputs, continue-on-error, timeout-minutes and working-directory. Use multi-line run: | blocks for scripts.

Compose pipelines

Steps run in order inside a job; needs orders jobs; outputs and artifacts move data between them.

Common step patterns

Not linted or run here; check the GitHub Actions documentation for current syntax.

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v4            # get the code
  - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
    with:
      python-version: "3.12"
  - name: Install and test
    working-directory: api
    env:
      PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE: "1"
    run: |
      pip install -r requirements.txt
      pytest -q

Use run: | for anything with colons

Block scalars avoid YAML parsing surprises; an unquoted "echo New issue: x" line broke this course's own example until it was rewritten.

Quick check: What is the difference between uses and run?

• uses runs a packaged action; run executes shell commands
• They are identical
• run only works on Windows
• uses only installs Node.js