GitHub is integrating a much sought-after continuous integration/continuous development (CI/CD) tool into its Actions product that expands its ability to serve broader needs of the developer community and could alter the market’s competitive landscape.

The move itself will see an integrated CI/CD tool as part of Actions to make it easier to automate how a project is built, tested, and deployed. It will work in a container or on a virtual machine (VM) running on Linux, macOS, and Windows platforms. It will also support a number of programming languages like Node.js, Python, Java, and Ruby.

Actions itself is an API that plugs into GitHub. It can orchestrate workflows based on any event, with GitHub managing the execution and providing developers with feedback. It was initially announced at the company’s GitHub Universe event last year.

GitHub CEO Nat Friedman during a webcast of the launch said the product evolved from feedback the company heard from the community about the need for an integrated CI/CD tool.

“Since we introduced GitHub Actions last year, the response has been phenomenal, and developers have created thousands of inspired workflows,” Friedman wrote in a statement. “But we’ve also heard clear feedback from almost everyone: you want CI/CD! And that’s what we’re announcing today.”

He noted that it was fully integrated into the GitHub experience, and “works as GitHub works.”

Friedman also said that GitHub has 40 million developers, which was a substantial increase from the 28 million it claimed just over a year ago.

Actions is currently in beta with plans for general availability set for Nov. 13, which is the opening day of the GitHub Universe event. Access is free during the beta. GitHub will continue that free model for public repositories once it's launched, though private repositories will be charged on a pay-as-you-go model. Users can also use a self-hosted runner for free to run Actions on their own hardware or in another cloud.

Thomas Murphy, senior director analyst at Gartner, said the move was a strong push by the company.

“GitHub needs to continue to evolve and grow, and this is part of that process,” Murphy told SDxCentral. “They need to do that in ways that are part of the Microsoft relationship and also to still be independent of that relationship.”

That relationship is Microsoft’s controversial $7.5 billion acquisition of GitHub last year. That deal drew barbs from the open source community that was suspicious of Microsoft’s intentions.

“Microsoft has changed quite a bit, and for GitHub it’s important to show they are continuing to support that open source community,” Murphy said.

As for the broader market, Murphy said the GitHub move aligns with the evolution of the developer space. “All of the vendors are evolving their products and doing similar types of things,” he said, noting similar offerings from vendors like Atlassian, GitLab, and CloudBees.

“People are recognizing that as they move to CI/CD that you end up with these different components that make up your pipeline and toolchain,” Murphy explained. “Managing, configuring, and assembling those to keep them running is a challenge. You end up with large script files and all of these components that are also evolving. By moving to this format packaging it provides an easier way to assemble and maintain these pieces.”

Murphy stated that vendors are adapting to this new model. He cited CloudBees’ recent purchase of Electric Cloud as an example.

“It will be interesting to see how the continuous integration players react,” Murphy said. “These vendors don’t stay in their lanes when they expand. They look to move into new areas.”

That expansion could alter how other CI vendors and platforms evolve. “The Jenkins, the Travis, and the CircleCIs of the world, where do they fit and how do they move forward will be interesting,” Murphy added. “They are more competitive to Jenkins and Travis, but they are still their partners…They are not trying to do everything yet but are making everything more pluggable.”

GitHub did cite the ability for Actions to reuse “a rich ecosystem” from its partners like LaunchDarkly, Code Climate, and GitKraken, or trigger builds on other CI providers like CircleCI.

CircleCI CEO Jim Rose, in an email to SDxCentral, sounded a positive tone on the move.

"We have been building a CI/CD platform since 2011, and GitHub has been a great partner in making it easy for customers to kick off complex, scalable workflows on CircleCI from their source control platform,” Rose wrote. “GitHub’s move into this space is further validation that CI/CD is critical for the success of every software team. We believe, and GitHub does too, that developers thrive in open, connected ecosystems, and we look forward to working with them to lead the evolution of the CI/CD space."