CI/CD for PHP Projects: Setting Up GitHub Actions from Scratch

CI/CD for PHP Projects: Setting Up GitHub Actions

Modern PHP development is unthinkable without automation of testing, building, and deployment processes. CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment) allows teams to release updates faster, reduce the number of errors, and maintain high code quality. In this article, we will thoroughly examine how to set up CI/CD pipelines for PHP projects using GitHub Actions — GitHub's built-in automation tool.

We will look at real-world examples for popular frameworks (Laravel, Symfony), learn how to run tests, check code style, build artifacts, and automatically deploy to a server. The article will be useful for both beginners and experienced developers looking to optimize their workflow.

1. GitHub Actions Basics for PHP

GitHub Actions is a platform for automating workflows directly in the repository. Workflows are described in YAML files stored in the .github/workflows/ directory. Each workflow consists of one or more jobs that run on virtual machines (runners) when specific events occur (push, pull request, release, etc.).

For PHP projects, the key steps usually include:

• Installing dependencies via Composer
• Setting up the environment (PHP version, extensions, database)
• Running static analysis (PHPStan, Psalm)
• Executing unit tests (PHPUnit, Pest)
• Checking code style (PHP CS Fixer, Laravel Pint)
• Building and publishing a Docker image
• Deploying to a production/staging server

A minimal workflow for a PHP project looks like this:

name: PHP CI

on:  push:    branches: [ main ]  pull_request:    branches: [ main ]

jobs:  test:    runs-on: ubuntu-latest        steps:    - uses: actions/checkout@v4        - name: Setup PHP      uses: shivammathur/setup-php@v2      with:        php-version: '8.2'        extensions: mbstring, intl, pdo_mysql        coverage: xdebug        - name: Install dependencies      run: composer install --prefer-dist --no-progress        - name: Run tests      run: vendor/bin/phpunit --testdox

This workflow runs on every push or pull request creation to the main branch. It checks the code against standards and runs tests.

2. Advanced Configuration: Testing, Linting, and Static Analysis

A real project requires a more thorough code quality check. Let's look at an example for the Laravel framework with a full set of tools.

Let's create the file .github/workflows/laravel-ci.yml:

name: Laravel CI/CD

on:  push:    branches: [ main, develop ]  pull_request:    branches: [ main ]

jobs:  quality:    runs-on: ubuntu-latest    services:      mysql:        image: mysql:8.0        env:          MYSQL_DATABASE: testing          MYSQL_USER: user          MYSQL_PASSWORD: secret          MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: root        ports:          - 3306:3306        options: --health-cmd="mysqladmin ping" --health-interval=10s --health-timeout=5s --health-retries=3

    steps:    - uses: actions/checkout@v4

    - name: Setup PHP      uses: shivammathur/setup-php@v2      with:        php-version: '8.2'        extensions: mbstring, intl, pdo_mysql, bcmath, redis        coverage: pcov        tools: composer:v2

    - name: Copy .env      run: |        cp .env.example .env        php artisan key:generate

    - name: Install dependencies      run: composer install --no-interaction --prefer-dist

    - name: Run Laravel Pint (Code Style)      run: vendor/bin/pint --test

    - name: Run PHPStan (Static Analysis)      run: vendor/bin/phpstan analyse --memory-limit=2G