CI/CD for an Angular + Jest App on Firebase with GitHub Actions

Lint, run Jest tests, build, and deploy your Angular app to Firebase Hosting automatically.

This recipe runs an Angular app with Jest instead of Karma for headless unit tests, then deploys the production build to Firebase Hosting via the Firebase CLI and a service-account token.

What the pipeline does

install deps with npm ci
lint with ng lint
run Jest unit tests
build with ng build --configuration production
deploy to Firebase Hosting

The workflow

Jest runs headless without a browser. firebase deploy uses a service account passed through GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS or the FIREBASE_TOKEN secret.

.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-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: npm
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run lint
      - run: npm test -- --ci
      - run: npm run build -- --configuration production
      - if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
        run: npx firebase-tools deploy --only hosting --token ${{ secrets.FIREBASE_TOKEN }}

Caching and speed

cache: npm restores node_modules, and Jest caches its transform output under /tmp/jest keyed by config. The Angular AOT build is CPU heavy; cheaper managed runners such as Latchkey (around 69% cheaper than GitHub-hosted) keep production builds fast, and auto-retry handles a flaky Firebase CLI download.

Deploying

Generate a CI token with firebase login:ci, store it as FIREBASE_TOKEN, and reference your project in firebase.json. For preview channels per PR, run firebase hosting:channel:deploy pr-${{ github.event.number }} instead of a production deploy.

Key takeaways

Use Jest with --ci for deterministic headless Angular unit runs.
Deploy only hosting with a scoped Firebase CI token.
Use Firebase preview channels for per-PR deployments.