How do you implement a complete CI/CD pipeline for a container image in GitHub Actions — build, push to a registry, and deploy?

A typical container CI/CD pipeline in GitHub Actions has three stages: build the image, push it to a registry, and trigger a deployment. Here is a production-ready example using GitHub Container Registry (GHCR):

name: Build and Deploy Container

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

permissions:
  contents: read
  packages: write     # needed to push to GHCR

jobs:
  build-and-push:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    outputs:
      image-tag: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.tags }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Set up Docker Buildx
        uses: docker/setup-buildx-action@v3

      - name: Log in to GHCR
        uses: docker/login-action@v3
        with:
          registry: ghcr.io
          username: ${{ github.actor }}
          password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

      - name: Extract metadata
        id: meta
        uses: docker/metadata-action@v5
        with:
          images: ghcr.io/${{ github.repository }}
          tags: |
            type=sha,prefix=sha-
            type=ref,event=branch

      - name: Build and push
        uses: docker/build-push-action@v6
        with:
          context: .
          push: true
          tags: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.tags }}
          cache-from: type=gha
          cache-to: type=gha,mode=max

  deploy:
    needs: build-and-push
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: production
    steps:
      - name: Deploy to Kubernetes
        run: |
          kubectl set image deployment/myapp             myapp=ghcr.io/${{ github.repository }}:sha-${{ github.sha }}
        env:
          KUBECONFIG: ${{ secrets.KUBECONFIG }}

Notable patterns used here:

• docker/setup-buildx-action enables BuildKit for multi-platform builds and layer caching.
• type=gha cache in build-push-action stores Docker build cache in GitHub Actions cache, dramatically speeding up incremental builds.
• docker/metadata-action generates consistent image tags from git metadata.
• The deploy job uses a GitHub Environment (environment: production) which can require manual approval, environment-specific secrets, and deployment protection rules.

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