CI/CD for a Go gRPC Service with GitHub Actions

Generate stubs, test, and build a static binary for your Go gRPC service.

A Go gRPC service compiles protobufs into Go stubs and serves over HTTP/2. This recipe generates and lints the protos with buf, runs tests, builds a static binary, and ships a container.

What the pipeline does

set up Go and buf
lint and generate stubs with buf
vet and test with go vet and go test
build a static binary with CGO_ENABLED=0
push a container image on main

The workflow

buf generate produces the Go and gRPC stubs from your protos; the build then compiles a static binary you copy into a minimal container.

.github/workflows/ci.yml

name: CI
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-go@v5
        with:
          go-version: '1.22'
          cache: true
      - uses: bufbuild/buf-action@v1
        with:
          setup_only: true
      - run: buf lint
      - run: buf generate
      - run: go vet ./...
      - run: go test ./...
      - run: CGO_ENABLED=0 go build -o server ./cmd/server
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: server
          path: server

Caching and speed

setup-go with cache: true restores the build and module cache keyed on go.sum. gRPC services build fast, so most CI time is tests; cheaper managed runners such as Latchkey keep frequent runs inexpensive and auto-retry transient module-proxy failures.

Deploying

Copy the static binary into a distroless container, push to GHCR or ECR, and deploy to Kubernetes or ECS. Expose the gRPC port and add a gRPC health check; put an L7 proxy (Envoy) in front if you need gRPC-Web for browsers.

Key takeaways

buf lint and buf generate keep protos and stubs in sync.
Build with CGO_ENABLED=0 for a portable static binary.
Add a gRPC health check for orchestrator probes.