...

GitHub is a well-known platform hosting thousands of source-code repositories.

Besides, it It also provides issue tracking and basic project management capabilities.

...

In a nutshell, workflows are automated processes described as YAML files, stored under .github/workflows.  These These are usually triggered by events (e.g. code-commit, pull-request) or can also be scheduled.

...

Each time a workflow is triggered, a workflow run is created; it contains a specific context.   Each job in the workflow uses a fresh virtual environment (e.g. ubuntu-latest) sharing the same virtual file system.

...

A job can generate output variables that can be used by another job that depends on it.; this is the preferred way to share data between jobs.

Another way of sharing data, especially between jobs, would be to produce and store artifact(s) in a job and obtain them in another job.

Environment variables can also be used to access some data and share them with care. Environment variables are available There are also typical environment variables available at workflow, job or step level. GitHub fills out some environment variables by default.

It's also possible to access secrets, defined  defined in GitHub project settings, as environment variables or as a step input.

Another way of sharing data, especially between jobs, would be to produce and store artifact(s) in a job and obtain them in another job.

Examples

Basic JUnit example

...

To implement the continuous integration, we'll implement a specific workflow for it and store it .github/workflows/CI-jira-onpremises-example.yaml.

We’ll use the actions/checkout action to checkout the code from our repository to the virtual environment.   This action is one of the "standard" actions provided by GitHub (check full list here).

...

name: CI (Jira on-premises example)
on: [push]
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
        
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v1
    - name: Set up Java
      uses: actions/setup-java@v1
      with:
        java-version: '1.8'
    - name: Cache Maven packages
      uses: actions/cache@v2
      with:
        path: ~/.m2
        key: ${{ runner.os }}-m2-${{ hashFiles('**/pom.xml') }}
        restore-keys: ${{ runner.os }}-m2
    - name: Build with Maven
      run: mvn clean compile test --file java-junit-calc/pom.xml
    - name: Submit results to Xray
      env:
        JIRA_SERVER_URL: ${{ secrets.jira_server_url }}
        JIRA_USERNAME: ${{ secrets.jira_username }}
        JIRA_PASSWORD: ${{ secrets.jira_password }}
      run: 'curl -H "Content-Type: multipart/form-data" -u $jira$JIRA_userUSERNAME:$jira$JIRA_passwordPASSWORD -F "file=@target/surefire-reports/TEST-com.xpand.java.CalcTest.xml" "$jira$JIRA_serverSERVER_urlURL/rest/raven/1.0/import/execution/junit?projectKey=CALC"'

In order to submit those results to Xray, we'll just need to invoke the REST API (as detailed in Import Execution Results - REST).

...

To see the runs for your workflows (i.e. workflow runs), you may access the Actions tab in your repository browser.

...

In Jira, Xray now shows the results of the automated tests in a brand new Test Execution issue. Test issues corresponding to each test method will be auto-provisioned, if they don't exist yet; otherwise, results will be reported against existing Tests.

Tips

• for editing workflow YAML files, you can do it directly from GitHub UI as it provides syntax highlighting, auto-completion, and more
• in the workflow definition, configure it to cache Maven dependencies (more info here)
• it's possible to re-run jobs from GitHub UI
  • 
• instead of using curl command to interact with Xray REST API, you can abstract it in a GitHub Action and use input parameters to be passed to the REST call

References

• Introduction to GitHub Actions
• Building and testing Java with Maven with GitHub Actions