GitHub Actions CI/CD for .NET: Zero to Production

Why GitHub Actions?

GitHub Actions is free for public repos, tightly integrated with your code, and has thousands of community actions. It's the default choice for .NET CI/CD in 2025.

Complete Workflow

name: CI/CD
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
jobs:
  build-and-deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v4
        with:
          dotnet-version: '10.0.x'
      - run: dotnet restore
      - run: dotnet test --no-restore
      - run: dotnet publish -c Release -o publish
      - uses: azure/webapps-deploy@v3
        with:
          app-name: my-app
          publish-profile: ${{ secrets.AZURE_PUBLISH_PROFILE }}
          package: publish

Caching Dependencies

- uses: actions/cache@v4
  with:
    path: ~/.nuget/packages
    key: nuget-${{ hashFiles('**/*.csproj') }}

This alone cuts build time from 3 minutes to under 30 seconds on subsequent runs.