Improving CI Workflows using Elixir and GitHub Actions

The team at Optimum BH explains their preference for GitHub Actions for Continuous Integration (CI) on projects hosted on GitHub. Over time, they faced the challenge of CI workflows growing increasingly complex and slow. To combat this, they decided to leverage Elixir's syntax to create reusable components in workflow definitions, despite GitHub Actions' lack of full YAML syntax support. By authoring workflow definitions in Elixir and then transforming them into YAML, they gained flexibility and maintainability. They shared a mix task named `github_workflows_generator` to the community, which allows other developers to generate GitHub Actions workflow files from Elixir code. Challenges in distribution, such as working with NIFs and packaging dependencies, led them to release the tool as a Hex package for easy integration into other Elixir projects. The article provides usage examples and explains how to customize the generator for various CI needs. It concludes by encouraging readers to reach out with questions and to watch for future blog posts detailing their unique DevOps practices.