Take Action: Go Fast with GitHub

Description

In this recorded Live! 360 session, Esteban Garcia shows how to go from “it works on my machine” to repeatable, production-style deployments using GitHub Actions—then layers in GitHub Copilot and agentic workflows to help you build, debug, and evolve CI/CD faster. Starting with a simple .NET web app, Esteban walks through the core structure of Actions, generates workflows with Copilot inside VS Code, and expands from CI to full CI/CD deployments to Azure using OpenID Connect. Along the way, you’ll see how Copilot agent mode can refactor pipelines into reusable workflows, how Model Context Protocol (MCP) can bring GitHub issues/PR context into your dev flow, and how custom agents can specialize Copilot for DevOps tasks like workflow optimization and best practices. 🔑 What You’ll Learn • GitHub Actions fundamentals: workflows, triggers, jobs, steps, runners, and YAML structure • How to create CI workflows (restore/build/test) and speed them up with caching • How to expand CI into CI/CD deployments to Azure (including dev vs prod branching) • Using OpenID Connect for secure Azure deployments (no long-lived credentials) • Managing environments, approvals, and protected production deployments • How Copilot helps with YAML: generation, explanation, troubleshooting, and optimization • How agent mode can make multi-step workflow edits and introduce reusable patterns • Using MCP to pull GitHub issue/PR context into your Copilot workflow • Creating custom Copilot agents (e.g., an “Actions specialist”) for repeatable DevOps automation ⏱️ Chapters 00:00 Intro + why CI/CD is harder (and more necessary) than ever 02:05 Session roadmap: Actions + Copilot + agent mode + MCP + custom agents 04:30 What is GitHub Actions? YAML, triggers, jobs, steps, runners 08:10 Demo setup: sample web app + repo structure 10:15 Build your first CI workflow from GitHub (push/PR triggers) 12:45 Why Copilot for YAML: context-aware workflow generation + debugging failures 15:20 Generate CI in VS Code with Copilot (restore/build/test + NuGet caching) 18:30 Run the workflow in GitHub + read logs and failures 22:40 Copilot Agent Mode: expand CI into CI/CD Azure deployment (OIDC) 26:20 Add dev + prod deployments with branch-based triggers 29:00 Secrets + variables in GitHub Actions 32:15 Making pipelines reusable + avoiding over-engineering 40:20 MCP overview + connecting Copilot to GitHub for issues/PR context 48:00 Custom agents in GitHub Copilot: creating an “Actions specialist” 53:10 Demo: agent-generated PR with workflow optimization + docs 58:10 Quick UI improvement demo + end-to-end deploy with approvals 1:02:45 Production approvals (environment gates) + deploy to prod 1:05:04 Wrap-up: going from laptop → GitHub → Azure reliably 👤 Speaker: Esteban Garcia Head of GitHub AI Solutions, Lantern | Microsoft MVP | Microsoft Regional Director 🔗 Links • Access the repo: https://repotocloud.com • Download Visual Studio 2026: http://visualstudio.com/download • Explore more Live! 360 sessions: https://aka.ms/L360Orlando25 • Join upcoming VS Live! events: https://aka.ms/VSLiveEvents #GitHubActions #GitHubCopilot #DevOps #dotnet #Azure #AI