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Eric Jinks

Posted on Sep 14, 2019 • Edited on Feb 20, 2020 • Originally published at ericjinks.com

Schedule your Netlify build with GitHub Actions

#netlify #github #serverless #jamstack

If you host a site on Netlify, you may know about Build Hooks. By creating a build hook and sending a POST request to it, you trigger a new build & deploy for your site. If your build process is pulling in content from third-party services (e.g. Instagram, Youtube), scheduling a daily build & deploy can be an easy way to keep this content fresh.

The easiest way to setup a scheduled build hook trigger that I have come across is to use GitHub Actions. Setting this up is completely free if your repository if public. If your repository if private, you will most likely remain in their free tier, see pricing here.

Creating a scheduled Netlify build trigger GitHub Action

1 – Add a Build hook to your site using the Netlify Dashboard

(Settings > Build & Deploy > Continuous Deployment > Build hooks)

2 – In your GitHub repo, create a main.yml file in a .github/workflows directory:

   # .github/workflows/main.yml

   name: Trigger Netlify Build
   on:
     schedule:
       # Run at 0815 daily
       - cron: '15 8 * * *'
   jobs:
     build:
       name: Request Netlify Webhook
       runs-on: ubuntu-latest
       steps:
         - name: Curl request
           run: curl -X POST -d {} YOUR_BUILD_HOOK

Replace YOUR_BUILD_HOOK with the build hook url you just created.

You can use crontab.guru to easily generate your cron schedule.

3 – Open the Actions tab in you GitHub repo to watch the workflow trigger as per your cron schedule. 🎉

I hope this is useful to you! If you have any questions, I've created an example repository that uses GitHub Actions to build every 15mins:

Jinksi / netlify-build-github-actions

An example of triggering a Netlify build using Github Actions Scheduled Events

⏰ Trigger Netlify builds on a schedule using Github Actions

Add a Build hook to your site using the Netlify Dashboard

Settings > Build & Deploy > Continuous Deployment > Build hooks

Create a .github/workflows/main.yml file in your Github repo, replacing YOUR_BUILD_HOOK with the build hook you just created.

name: Trigger Netlify Build
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '*/15 * * * *' # every 15 mins
jobs:
  build:
    name: Request Netlify Webhook
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Curl request
        run: curl -X POST -d {} YOUR_BUILD_HOOK

Adjust the cron settings to determine how often the build will be triggered.
15 8 * * * would run every day at 0815
0 0,12 * * * would run at midday and midnight every day
crontab guru can help you generate the correct cron syntax.
See the Github Actions…

View on GitHub

Top comments (3)

Christopher C. Johnson • Feb 18 '20

I just want to add that you should take your UTC offset into account.

For example:

If you want your build to run every morning at 8:15 A.M. and you're in the Eastern Time Zone (UTC -5) then you wouldn't use '15 8 * * *',
you'd use '15 13 * * *' because you're five hours behind.