How to Migrate From Bitbucket Pipelines to GitHub Actions

Bitbucket pipelines and steps map to Actions jobs and steps, image maps to container, caches map to actions/cache, and services map to service containers.

Bitbucket pipelines group ordered steps. In Actions those become jobs with needs (or steps in one job). image becomes container:, caches become actions/cache, and services become the services: block.

Concept mapping

bitbucket-pipelines.yml	GitHub Actions
`pipelines.default`	`on: [push, pull_request]`
`step:`	a job or grouped steps
`image:`	`container:`
`caches:`	`actions/cache`
`services:`	`services:` (service containers)
`deployment:`	`environment:` on a job

Before

bitbucket-pipelines.yml

image: node:20
pipelines:
  default:
    - step:
        caches: [node]
        script:
          - npm ci
          - npm test

After

.github/workflows/ci.yml

on: [push, pull_request]
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    container: node:20
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/cache@v4
        with:
          path: ~/.npm
          key: npm-${{ hashFiles('package-lock.json') }}
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test

What does not map cleanly

Bitbucket named caches (like node) are predefined; in Actions you spell out the path and key yourself.
Bitbucket step size (2x, 4x) is chosen inline; in Actions you pick a larger runner label instead.
Bitbucket deployments and their permissions become environments with reviewers in Actions.