How Do Software Developers Use GitHub Actions to Automate Their Workflows?

TL;DR

This study investigates how software developers utilize GitHub Actions for automation, revealing increased rejected pull requests and decreased commits post-adoption, with a generally positive perception of the technology.

Contribution

First empirical analysis of GitHub Actions usage, providing insights into its effects on repository activity and developer perceptions.

Findings

Adoption is currently limited to a small subset of repositories.

Developers perceive GitHub Actions positively.

Adoption correlates with more rejected pull requests and fewer commits on merged pull requests.

Abstract

Automated tools are frequently used in social coding repositories to perform repetitive activities that are part of the distributed software development process. Recently, GitHub introduced GitHub Actions, a feature providing automated workflows for repository maintainers. Although several Actions have been built and used by practitioners, relatively little has been done to evaluate them. Understanding and anticipating the effects of adopting such kind of technology is important for planning and management. Our research is the first to investigate how developers use Actions and how several activity indicators change after their adoption. Our results indicate that, although only a small subset of repositories adopted GitHub Actions to date, there is a positive perception of the technology. Our findings also indicate that the adoption of GitHub Actions increases the number of monthly rejected pull requests and decreases the monthly number of commits on merged pull requests. These results are especially relevant for practitioners to understand and prevent undesirable effects on their projects.