// Automation

Chris showcases Timestamp, an open-source countdown timer app built with vanilla TypeScript featuring an extensible theme system, world map wall clock, and 2500+ unit tests with 300+ Playwright end-to-end tests. He deep-dives into structuring GitHub Copilot custom instructions vs agents vs prompt files, demonstrates manager-specialist agent patterns, and walks through GitHub Actions automation for issue forms and theme scaffolding.

Chris continues building custom agents for the software development life cycle. After reviewing the changelog including Copilot Spaces updates and assigning issues to Copilot via API, he explores the awesome-copilot repository for agent inspiration, brainstorms SDLC agent ideas like test writers and security reviewers, and live-builds a GitHub Actions workflow agent with a companion instructions file.

Azure RBAC is a critical security control — but managing custom role definitions manually is error-prone, hard to audit, and doesn't scale. In this episode, Chris is joined by Marcel Lupo, DevOps MVP and Solutions Architect, who demonstrates how GitHub Actions can automate the full lifecycle of custom Azure RBAC role definitions. This session goes beyond typical developer workflows to show how GitHub can serve as the governance backbone for your Azure security posture — with role definitions version-controlled, reviewed via pull requests, and deployed through automated pipelines.

In a couple of previous blog posts, I provided a writeup on the GitHub Projects Beta. I wrote two posts on automation within GitHub Projects (Adding Issues to GitHub Projects with GitHub Actions for a user profile and Adding Issues to GitHub Projects with GitHub Actions for an Organization profile). I'm pleased to say that the capabilities went Generally Available last week! As a result of the GA announcement and resulting changes, I need to post updates to my older samples.

Chris and Matt set up federated identity credentials (OIDC) for passwordless GitHub Actions authentication to Azure, deploy container apps via CI/CD, and discuss workflow trigger strategies for container image deployments.

Chris and Matt containerize their Go microservices by writing Dockerfiles, building images, and publishing them to GitHub Packages container registry using GitHub Actions workflows with GITHUB_TOKEN authentication.

Join Microsoft for an introduction to WebApp creation and hear employability advice from Microsoft employees! This day will be given in 4 virtual informative and lab sessions: Session 1: Introduction to GitHub, Session 2: Introduction to Hugo, Session 3: Introduction to Azure Static Web Apps, Session 4: Career Talks / Employability Tips

Did you know that static content can help you build performant sites that easily scale globally? Better yet, they can be incredibly cost-effective! Join Chris, as he talks through - * The JAMstack (not related to Paddington bear - I promise!) and why you should care about it * Static Site Generators such as Hugo * Azure Hosting Options - Azure Storage vs Azure Static Web Apps * Combining Static sites with Serverless APIs

Did you know that static content can help you build performant sites that easily scale globally? Better yet, they can be incredibly cost-effective! Join Chris, as he talks through - * The JAMstack (not related to Paddington bear - I promise!) and why you should care about it * Static Site Generators such as Hugo * Azure Hosting Options - Azure Storage vs Azure Static Web Apps * Combining Static sites with Serverless APIs

In this post, I show how I use GitHub Actions to call an Azure Function (through Azure API Management) that interacts with Google Analytics as part of the process to build my Hugo Static Site. The end result is that top posts are pulled into the Static Site Generation build process, rather than calling the Google Analytics API through JavaScript at runtime.