Deploying your app with GitHub Actions

In this tutorial we will show how to set up deployment of an app with GitHub actions, so that every push to your GitHub repository will automatically deploy the new version of your app to Numerous

In the repository numerous-com/deploy-app-with-github-actions-tutorial we have set up the example that we will go through in this tutorial. You can use it as a reference for your own repository.

Clone the repository to your machine

This tutorial assumes that you have a repository set up on GitHub. First we either clone it, or if it is already on the computer, navigate to it in our terminal.

Create a simple app

Inside the folder of our repository, we create a very simple app. For this tutorial we create a Streamlit app.

numerous init --app-library streamlit

After following the wizard, we open app.py in our code editor, and add the following content to it.

import streamlit as st

st.text("This app has been deployed with GitHub actions")

Now the app should be ready to be deployed, we just need to set up the deployment.

Define the GitHub actions workflow

In your repository folder create the directory .github/workflows and inside that add the file deploy.yml, and add the following workflow definition.

name: Deploy

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      # First, we check out the code:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      # Then we set up python:
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: "3.11"
          cache: "pip"

      # We install the Numerous SDK, which includes the CLI:
      - run: pip install numerous

      # And finally we deploy our app, setting the NUMEROUS_ACCESS_TOKEN
      # environment  variable with the GitHub actions secret that contains the
      # actual value.
      # We also insert the app slug and organization slug from secrets.
      - env:
          NUMEROUS_ACCESS_TOKEN: ${{secrets.NUMEROUS_ACCESS_TOKEN}}
        run: numerous deploy --app ${{secrets.APP_SLUG}} --organization ${{secrets.ORGANIZATION_SLUG}}

Create a personal access token

We need a personal access token to give the CLI access to run in the GitHub actions environment without logging in. Create one with the below command.

numerous token create --name github-actions

Copy the token that is printed, so you can add it to a GitHub secret later.

Finding your organization slug

You can find your organization slug either in the browser or with the CLI.

Using the CLI we can run numerous organization list, and a list of all your organizations will be displayed, which includes. You can also create an organization with numerous organization create if you do not have one.

In the browser you can find the organization slug in the address bar, like in the screenshot below.

Add secret values to GitHub actions

In our workflow file we used the secrets NUMEROUS_ACCESS_TOKEN, APP_SLUG and ORGANIZATION_SLUG. We need to define the values for these.

1. Go to the repository Settings page.

2. Open the Secrets and variables for Actions page.

3. Click the button to create a new repository secret.

4. First we add the secret named NUMEROUS_ACCESS_TOKEN that we use in the workflow. Add the personal access token that you created earlier as the Secret.

   The value in the screenshot is just an example of how it will look like.

5. Now we add the secret named ORGANIZATION_SLUG that we use in the workflow. Add the organization slug you found before as the Secret.

6. Finally, The app slug is user defined. You can select a different value, but it has to be composed of only lowercase alphanumeric characters with dashes as the separator. It will become part of the URL for the app.

Push your repository

Now commit and push the simple app and the workflow file, and GitHub actions should start a workflow for your repository!

And when the workflow has completed, the app should be deployed to the specified organization and app slug.