Gracie Gregory (she/her) for The DEV Team

Posted on Nov 8

Join Us for the 2021 GitHub Actions Hackathon on DEV!

#actionshackathon21 #actions #opensource #github

For the second year in a row, GitHub will be hosting the "GitHub Actions Hackathon" right here on DEV!

From now until December 8th, GitHub is offering an unmissable opportunity to utilize GitHub Actions to benefit open source in exchange for prizes. All participants will need to share a DEV post detailing how they created their amazing workflow with GitHub Actions. We can't wait to see what you create!

Read on for more details about GitHub Actions and how you can join the hackathon.

What Are GitHub Actions?

GitHub Actions are individual tasks that allow you to automate and customize your software development workflows. Actions are located in the same place you store code, collaborate with peers, solve issues, and ship open source software — GitHub!

For this year’s hackathon, we’re encouraging participants to utilize existing GitHub Actions to create workflows that make sense in the real world. While you are free to create a new Action, the emphasis of this contest is to create practical and interesting solutions other developers can utilize to solve problems with open source. We hope you’ll walk away with a greater understanding of the value of GitHub Actions — for you and the open source community.

We’re excited to see how you approach this challenge. More on GitHub Actions here.

Why Participate?

Following the momentum of Hacktoberfest last month, we wanted to emphasize GitHub Actions are a perfect open source access point. They allow you to create helpful and logical workflows for your everyday life.

We also think the prizes on offer make for a pretty compelling case to participate in the GitHub Actions Hackathon 2021 😉

Prizes

5 Grand Prize Winners (one in each category):

$1,500 USD gift card or equivalent
$300 USD credit to the DEV Shop
GitHub Swag Pack
DEV Sticker Pack
DEV “Actions Hackathon 2021” grand prize winner badge

Runner-Up Prizes (10 Total):

$250 USD gift card or equivalent
$150 USD credit to the DEV Shop
GitHub Swag Pack
DEV Sticker Pack
DEV “Actions Hackathon 2021” runner-up badge

Participants (with a valid project):

DEV Sticker Pack
DEV “Actions Hackathon 2021” participant profile badge

How to Participate

There’s already a robust library of GitHub Actions. So, for the 2021 version of this hackathon, we are challenging you to submit workflows by leveraging existing actions. That said, you are free to create custom actions if necessary.

In order to submit a valid project, please follow the submission process, and rules below...

How To Submit

Document your project journey along the way with the #ActionsHackathon21 tag.
Submit your project as a DEV post by filling out this template to share your workflow/s (.yml) and/or code repository.
Please make sure the project links to the appropriate GitHub Actions repository, and includes an open source license and README.

Additional Rules

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Open only to 18+. Contest entry period ends December 8, 2021 at 11:59 pm PT. Contest is void where prohibited, or restricted by law or regulation. For Official Rules, see Contest Announcement Page and General Contest Official Rules.

Community Support

The GitHub team will be available to help anyone who runs into issues, or has questions related to GitHub Actions or the hackathon in general. You can reach the GitHub team by leaving a comment in the GitHub Actions Hackathon help thread.

We also have a community update thread where you can share your ideas, and gather feedback on your submission. You can use this thread to share your progress, generate community excitement, and get feedback from the community.

Important Dates 🗓

November 8, 2021: Hackathon Begins!
December 8, 2021: Hackathon Submission Due at 11:59 PM PST.
December 17, 2021: Hackathon Winners Announced

Have fun with this challenge from our friends at GitHub!

Discussion (57)

Rajvir Singh • Nov 8

Surely gona have some fun! Thanks Dev & Github Team

Rajvir Singh • Nov 8 • Edited on Nov 8

Update guys, It is mid night here :\, So I am gona make some wacky github action submission ;)

Gracie Gregory (she/her) • Nov 8

Awesome. I can't WAIT to see the Wacky Wildcards submissions 🎉

dev-laksh • Nov 10

hey can you please tell describely how to do it, i did'nt get it correctly

Rajvir Singh • Nov 10

Just get started with github actions docs, and if you get stuck or have any questions just ask them here on community help thread

dev-laksh • Nov 10

thanks rajvir i really means a lot for me

Rajvir Singh • Nov 10

Lets have fun! 😊

Abigail Phoenix • Nov 8

Excited to see all the amazing projects that'll come out of this!

João M.C. Teixeira • Nov 10

Great event! For those who Python, I maintain a tutouring repository for CI/deployment good practices where I combine tox, readthedocs, github actions, and more. I use this setup in all my research projects. And, you can use this repository as a template (it is not a coockiecutter). Enjoy, share, and comment.

dev.to/joaomcteixeira/python-proje...

Cheers!

Sherry • Nov 8

Exciting!!!

Ben Halpern • Nov 8

Definitely.

Siddharth • Nov 9

18+ 😑😑

Anish De • Nov 9

Exciting Hackathon to show off my GitHub action skills but.... I am under 18 😭

Thomas Bnt • Nov 8

Ooooh 🥰🥰

I started to think about an idea of Action. 🔧😄👨🏼‍💻

Gracie Gregory (she/her) • Nov 8

Heck yes!!

Thomas Bnt • Nov 15

Update of 15 November : I have nooo idea :c

Ben Halpern • Nov 8

There are always good ideas around how folks interact with Forem via GitHub Actions. I'll definitely be encouraging of that!

Rajvir Singh • Nov 10

Definitely 🤭 gona try that

Suzanne Aitchison (she/her) • Nov 8

Woohoo! This is gonna be great ✨

Utkarsh Maurya • Nov 11

So, if I add a pre-existing github action to my project and tweak it according to my needs..it will be a valid project? If not, can someone suggest me what exactly I have to do with pre-existing GitHub actions in order for it to be accepted?

Trang Le • Nov 15

This is what they said in the announcement:

we’re encouraging participants to utilize existing GitHub Actions to create workflows that make sense in the real world.

I think your entry will be valid as long as you tweak it enough. And how much is enough? There's no hard and fast number, but look at your project as it was written by another developer. Will you accept it as a valid project?

Utkarsh Maurya • Nov 15

Thank you Trang. I have a much better idea of what I have to do. 😄

Nick Taylor (he/him) • Nov 8

Let's go!

Ella Ang (she/her/elle) • Nov 8

This seems like a fun challenge!

I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of ingenious solutions come out of our community of resourceful, innovative devs!

Bobby Iliev • Nov 17

This is amazing! Just completed my submission:

Automate your Ibis eBook build process with this GitHub Action + Workflow

Bobby Iliev ・ Nov 17 ・ 3 min read

#actionshackathon21 #github #git #books

A link ot the GitHub Action:

bobbyiliev / ibis-build-action

GitHub Action to run ibis builds on merge

ibis-build-action

A GitHub Action to automatically run ibis builds on merge to main.

Ibis

Ibis is a PHP tool that lets you write eBooks in Markdown.

Usage

In order to automatically build your Ibis PDF files, create a directory called .github/workflows/ and add a fill called ibis.yml with the following content:

name: Ibis eBook Generation
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@main
      with:
        fetch-depth: '0'
    - name: Build Ibis Export Files
      uses: bobbyiliev/ibis-build-action@main
      env:
        GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        IBIS_PATH: './'
        IBIS_BRANCH: 'main'
        EMAIL: 'bobby@bobbyiliev.com'
        COMMIT_MESSAGE: 'Updated Ibis Exorted Files'