CI/CD for a RedwoodJS App with GitHub Actions

Lint, test both sides, migrate Prisma, and build your RedwoodJS app.

RedwoodJS is a full-stack framework with a React web side and a GraphQL api side sharing one repo. This recipe runs yarn rw test for both sides against a Postgres service container, then builds the app.

What the pipeline does

• install deps with yarn install --immutable
• lint with yarn rw lint
• apply Prisma migrations to Postgres
• test web and api with yarn rw test
• build with yarn rw build

The workflow

Redwood uses Yarn workspaces. Enable Corepack so the pinned Yarn version is used, then run the Redwood CLI commands against a Postgres service.

name: CI
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    services:
      postgres:
        image: postgres:16
        env:
          POSTGRES_PASSWORD: postgres
          POSTGRES_DB: redwood
        ports: ["5432:5432"]
        options: >-
          --health-cmd "pg_isready" --health-interval 10s
          --health-timeout 5s --health-retries 5
    env:
      DATABASE_URL: postgresql://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/redwood
      TEST_DATABASE_URL: postgresql://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/redwood
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
      - run: corepack enable
      - run: yarn install --immutable
      - run: yarn rw lint
      - run: yarn rw prisma migrate deploy
      - run: yarn rw test --no-watch
      - run: yarn rw build

Caching and speed

Cache the Yarn cache directory with actions/cache keyed on yarn.lock. Redwood builds both the web bundle and the api functions, which is heavy; running on cheaper managed runners such as Latchkey (around 69% cheaper than GitHub-hosted) keeps PR feedback fast, and auto-retry handles flaky dependency fetches.

Deploying

yarn rw build emits web/dist plus api function bundles. Use a Redwood deploy provider (Netlify, Vercel, or serverless) with yarn rw deploy, and run prisma migrate deploy against production first.

Key takeaways

• Enable Corepack so the pinned Yarn version drives the Redwood CLI.
• yarn rw test runs both web and api suites; pass --no-watch in CI.
• Build emits a web bundle plus api function bundles for serverless deploy.

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