The Mysterious Case of the Failing GitHub Action Workflow: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building and Publishing an Angular 18 App to GitHub Pages

Are you tired of seeing your GitHub Action workflow fail to deploy your Angular 18 app to GitHub Pages? You’re not alone! In this article, we’ll dive into the most common culprits behind this frustrating issue and provide a clear, step-by-step guide to get your workflow up and running.

The Problem: A GitHub Action Workflow that Refuses to Deploy

You’ve written a fantastic Angular 18 app, and you’re excited to share it with the world. You’ve set up a GitHub Action workflow to build and publish your app to GitHub Pages, but for some reason, it just won’t deploy. You’ve checked the logs, and all you see is a cryptic error message that doesn’t give you any clues about what’s going wrong.

Don’t worry, we’ve all been there! In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the most common issues that can cause your GitHub Action workflow to fail and provide a comprehensive guide to building and publishing your Angular 18 app to GitHub Pages.

Prerequisites: What You Need to Get Started

Before we dive into the meat of the article, let’s make sure you have the following prerequisites in place:

• An Angular 18 project set up with GitHub

• A GitHub Actions workflow file (yml file) in the root of your repository

• A GitHub Pages site set up for your repository

Step 1: Check Your GitHub Action Workflow File

The first step in troubleshooting your GitHub Action workflow is to take a closer look at your workflow file. Open the file in your favorite code editor and make sure you have the following sections:

name: Build and Deploy to GitHub Pages

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  build-and-deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v2

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm install

      - name: Build and deploy
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          REPOSITORY_NAME: ${{ github.repository }}
        run: |
          npm run build
          git config --global user.email "[email protected]"
          git config --global user.name "Your Name"
          git remote add origin https://github.com/${REPOSITORY_NAME}.git
          git push --force origin main:gh-pages

Make sure you’ve replaced [email protected] and Your Name with your actual email and name.

Step 2: Verify Your GitHub Pages Setup

In this step, we’ll make sure your GitHub Pages setup is correct:

1. Go to your repository on GitHub and click on the Settings tab.

2. Scroll down to the Github Pages section.

3. Make sure the GitHub Pages switch is turned on.

4. Select the branch that you want to use for your GitHub Pages site (in this case, we’re using the gh-pages branch).

5. Click Save changes.

Step 3: Check Your Angular 18 App Configuration

In this step, we’ll verify that your Angular 18 app is configured correctly:

1. Open your angular.json file and make sure the outputPath is set to dist.

{
  "projects": {
    "your-app": {
      ...
      "architect": {
        "build": {
          "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:browser",
          "options": {
            ...
            "outputPath": "dist",
            ...
          },
          ...
        },
        ...
      }
    }
  }
}

2. Make sure your tsconfig.json file is configured correctly:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    ...
    "outDir": "dist",
    ...
  }
}

Step 4: Troubleshoot Your GitHub Action Workflow Logs

In this step, we’ll take a closer look at your GitHub Action workflow logs to identify any errors:

1. Go to your repository on GitHub and click on the Actions tab.

2. Find the workflow run that failed and click on it.

3. Click on the Build and deploy job.

4. Scroll down to the Log section.

5. Look for any error messages that might give you a clue about what’s going wrong.

Common Errors and Solutions

Here are some common errors you might encounter and their solutions:

Error Message	Solution
Error: Cannot find module '@angular-devkit/build-angular'	Run npm install @angular-devkit/build-angular in your repository root.
Error: Cannot find module 'rxjs'	Run npm install rxjs in your repository root.
Error: GitHub Pages site not found	Verify that your GitHub Pages setup is correct (see Step 2).
Error: Permission denied	Make sure you have the correct permissions set up for your GitHub Actions workflow.

Conclusion

And that’s it! By following these steps, you should be able to troubleshoot and fix your GitHub Action workflow to build and publish your Angular 18 app to GitHub Pages. Remember to double-check your workflow file, GitHub Pages setup, and Angular 18 app configuration, and don’t be afraid to dig into your workflow logs to identify any errors.

Happy coding, and I hope this article has helped you solve the mystery of the failing GitHub Action workflow!

Frequently Asked Question

Stuck with deploying your Angular 18 app to GitHub Pages using GitHub Actions workflow? We’ve got you covered! Check out these frequently asked questions to troubleshoot and resolve common issues.