🚀 Deployment Automation with GitHub Actions

A production-ready Node.js + Express + MongoDB server with fully automated CI/CD — push to main and it deploys itself to an Azure VM via SSH, Docker, and GitHub Actions.

---

📐 Architecture

┌─────────────┐      push to main      ┌──────────────────┐
│  Developer   │ ──────────────────────▶│  GitHub Actions   │
└─────────────┘                         └────────┬─────────┘
                                                 │ SSH
                                                 ▼
                                        ┌──────────────────┐
                                        │   Azure VM        │
                                        │  ┌──────────────┐ │
                                        │  │  Docker       │ │
                                        │  │  ┌─────────┐ │ │
                                        │  │  │ Node.js  │ │ │
                                        │  │  │  App     │ │ │
                                        │  │  └─────────┘ │ │
                                        │  └──────────────┘ │
                                        └──────────────────┘
                                                 │
                                                 ▼
                                        ┌──────────────────┐
                                        │   MongoDB Atlas   │
                                        └──────────────────┘

✨ Features

• Express 5 REST API with TypeScript
• MongoDB integration via Mongoose
• Multi-stage Docker build — lightweight production image using node:22-alpine
• GitHub Actions CI/CD — auto-deploys on every push to main
• SSH-based deployment to an Azure VM using appleboy/ssh-action
• Docker Compose for easy container orchestration
• Environment variable management via dotenv and GitHub Secrets

🛠 Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Runtime	Node.js 22 (Alpine)
Language	TypeScript 5
Framework	Express 5
Database	MongoDB (Mongoose 9)
Containerization	Docker + Docker Compose
CI/CD	GitHub Actions
Hosting	Azure VM

📁 Project Structure

.
├── .github/workflows/
│   └── deploy.yaml        # GitHub Actions CI/CD pipeline
├── db.ts                  # MongoDB connection helper
├── server.ts              # Express application entry point
├── Dockerfile             # Multi-stage Docker build
├── docker-compose.yml     # Container orchestration
├── tsconfig.json          # TypeScript configuration
├── package.json           # Dependencies & scripts
├── .env                   # Environment variables (not committed)
└── .gitignore

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js v22+
• Docker & Docker Compose
• A MongoDB instance (e.g. MongoDB Atlas)

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/Sahilagarwal623/deployment-automation-github-actions.git
cd deployment-automation-github-actions

2. Set up environment variables

Create a .env file in the project root:

PORT=8000
MONGO_URL=mongodb+srv://<username>:<password>@<cluster>.mongodb.net/<dbname>

3. Run locally (development)

npm install
npm run dev

The server will start with hot-reloading via nodemon.

4. Run with Docker

docker compose up -d --build

The app will be available on http://localhost:8080.

⚙️ CI/CD Pipeline

The GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/deploy.yaml) automates deployment on every push to main:

1. Checkout — pulls the latest code
2. SSH into Azure VM — connects using secrets
3. Pull latest changes — runs git pull on the server
4. Inject environment variables — writes secrets to .env
5. Rebuild & restart — runs docker compose up -d --build

Required GitHub Secrets

Secret	Description
SSH_HOST	Azure VM public IP or hostname
SSH_USERNAME	SSH username (e.g. azureuser)
SSH_KEY	Private SSH key for authentication
PORT	Application port (e.g. 8000)
MONGO_URL	MongoDB connection string

📜 Available Scripts

Script	Command	Description
npm run dev	nodemon + ts-node	Start dev server with hot reload
npm run build	tsc	Compile TypeScript to dist/
npm start	node dist/server.js	Run production build

🐳 Docker

The Dockerfile uses a multi-stage build for an optimized production image:

• Stage 1 (Builder) — installs all dependencies, compiles TypeScript
• Stage 2 (Runner) — copies only compiled JS + production dependencies

This keeps the final image small and free of dev tooling.

📄 License

ISC