🚀 Setting Up CI/CD with GitHub Actions to Push a GoLang Docker Image to GHCR

Recently, I worked on a GoLang project where I set up a complete CI/CD pipeline using GitHub Actions to build and push my Docker image to GitHub Container Registry (GHCR). In this blog, I’ll walk you through how I achieved it, along with some troubleshooting tips I learned along the way.

👉 GitHub Repo: nodejs-app-CICD-githubaction

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🛠️ Tech Stack

• GoLang

• Docker

• GitHub Actions

• GitHub Container Registry (GHCR)

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✅ What I Achieved

• Wrote a Dockerfile for my GoLang app

• Created a GitHub Actions workflow for CI/CD

• Successfully built and pushed Docker images to GHCR

• Handled authentication with GITHUB_TOKEN

• Troubleshot and fixed real-world CI/CD issues

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📂 Project Structure

├── main.go
├── Dockerfile
├── .github
│   └── workflows
│       └── docker.yml
└── README.md

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⚙️ GitHub Actions Workflow

My GitHub Actions file looks like this (.github/workflows/docker.yml):

name: Build and Push Docker Image

on:
  push:
    branches: [ main ]
  # workflow_dispatch: # Commented to disable manual trigger

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v3

      - name: Log in to GHCR
        uses: docker/login-action@v2
        with:
          registry: ghcr.io
          username: ${{ github.actor }}
          password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

      - name: Build and push Docker image
        run: |
          docker build -t ghcr.io/${{ github.repository }}:latest .
          docker push ghcr.io/${{ github.repository }}:latest

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🐞 Troubleshooting I Faced

1. Incorrect Dockerfile Path
   My workflow was failing because the path to the Dockerfile was not correct. Once I updated the correct path, the build worked perfectly.

2. 403 Forbidden While Pushing to GHCR
   I got a 403 error due to incorrect permissions on GITHUB_TOKEN. I fixed it by making sure my repository had the correct settings:

   • Settings > Actions > General > Workflow permissions

   • Set to: Read and write permissions

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📦 GHCR Docker Image

Once everything worked, the image was successfully pushed to:

ghcr.io/your-username/your-repo-name:latest

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📘 Lessons Learned

• Always double-check paths in GitHub workflows

• Permissions really matter when working with tokens

• GitHub Actions is powerful and smooth once configured properly

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🔗 GitHub Repository

Feel free to check out the full code here:
👉 https://github.com/AqibHafeez473/nodejs-app-CICD-githubaction

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💬 Final Words

This was a great hands-on experience to strengthen my DevOps and CI/CD concepts. If you're working with GoLang and want to containerize your app with automated deployments, GitHub Actions + GHCR is a great combo to get started.

If you found this helpful, feel free to connect or leave feedback 😊

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🔗 Tags

#GoLang #DevOps #Docker #GitHubActions #CI/CD #GHCR #Programming #Hashnode