Ci automation

Skill ykotik/cli-power-skills/skills/ci-automation

Use when running GitHub Actions locally, creating task runner recipes, generating changelogs from git history, managing GitHub PRs/issues/releases programmatically, or creating encrypted backupsFrom its SKILL.md

Install

npx -y skills add ykotik/cli-power-skills --skill ci-automation

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

One thing to look at

1 stars1 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.

What its file declares

Copied from the file, not written here

The file declares its own license as MIT. That is the author’s claim about this one file, and it is not the same thing as the license GitHub reports for the repository, which is listed with the other numbers below.

SKILL.md

5.5 KB, ~1.4k tokens by cl100k_base, as published. Nobody here has run it

CI Automation

When to Use

Running GitHub Actions workflows locally before pushing
Creating or running project task recipes (build, test, deploy)
Generating changelogs from conventional commit history
Creating GitHub releases with auto-generated release notes
Managing GitHub PRs, issues, or Actions runs programmatically
Creating encrypted backups before destructive operations

Tools

Tool	Purpose	Structured output
gh	GitHub CLI — PRs, issues, releases, Actions, API	`--json` on most commands
just	Task runner with Makefile-like recipes (Justfile)	N/A (runs commands)
act	Run GitHub Actions workflows locally in Docker	Terminal output (mirrors Actions logs)
git-cliff	Generate changelogs from conventional commits	`--output` for file, stdout by default
restic	Encrypted incremental backups	`--json` for JSON status output

Patterns

Run a specific GitHub Actions job locally

act -j build

Run Actions with a specific event trigger

act push

Run Actions with secrets from .env file

act --secret-file .env -j test

List available Actions workflows and jobs

act -l

Run Actions with specific platform image

act -P ubuntu-latest=catthehacker/ubuntu:act-latest

Create a Justfile with common recipes

Create Justfile:

# List available recipes
default:
    @just --list

# Run tests
test:
    pytest -v

# Lint and format
lint:
    ruff check --fix .
    ruff format .

# Build and tag Docker image
build tag="latest":
    docker build -t myapp:{{tag}} .

# Deploy to staging
deploy-staging: test lint
    ./scripts/deploy.sh staging

Run a just recipe

just test

Run recipe with arguments

just build v1.2.3

List available recipes

just --list

Generate changelog for all history

git-cliff --output CHANGELOG.md

Generate changelog for latest release only

git-cliff --latest

Generate changelog since a specific tag

git-cliff --tag v1.0.0..HEAD

Generate changelog with custom config

git-cliff --config cliff.toml --output CHANGELOG.md

GitHub: Create a release with changelog

git-cliff --latest --strip header | gh release create v1.2.3 --notes-file -

GitHub: List open PRs as JSON

gh pr list --json number,title,author,createdAt

GitHub: Create a PR

gh pr create --title "feat: add new feature" --body "Description of changes"

GitHub: View Actions run status

gh run list --json status,name,conclusion --limit 10

GitHub: Re-run a failed Actions workflow

gh run rerun <run-id> --failed

GitHub: Create an issue

gh issue create --title "Bug: description" --body "Steps to reproduce..." --label bug

GitHub: Query the GitHub API directly

gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/releases --jq '.[0:5] | .[].tag_name'

Restic: Initialize a backup repository

restic init --repo /path/to/backup

Restic: Create a backup

restic backup --repo /path/to/backup --json ./important-data

Restic: List snapshots

restic snapshots --repo /path/to/backup --json

Restic: Restore from backup

restic restore latest --repo /path/to/backup --target /path/to/restore

Pipelines

Generate changelog → create GitHub release

VERSION=$(git describe --tags --abbrev=0 2>/dev/null || echo "v0.1.0")
git-cliff --latest --strip header | gh release create "$VERSION" --notes-file - --title "$VERSION"

Each stage: git-cliff generates changelog for latest version, gh creates release with those notes.

Run local CI → create PR if passing

act -j test && act -j lint && gh pr create --title "feat: ready for review" --body "Local CI passed (test + lint)"

Each stage: act runs test job, act runs lint job, gh creates PR only if both pass.

Backup → deploy → verify

restic backup --repo /backup --json ./data && ./scripts/deploy.sh production && curl -sf https://myapp.com/health

Each stage: restic backs up current state, deploy script runs, curl verifies health endpoint.

List PRs → show CI status for each

gh pr list --json number,title,statusCheckRollup --jq '.[] | {pr: .number, title: .title, checks: [.statusCheckRollup[]? | {name: .name, status: .conclusion}]}'

Prefer Over

Prefer just over make for task recipes — better syntax, built-in arguments, no tab sensitivity
Prefer act over push-and-pray for CI debugging — test Actions locally before pushing
Prefer git-cliff over manual changelog writing — auto-generated from conventional commits
Prefer gh CLI over GitHub web UI for batch operations — scriptable, JSON output, faster

Do NOT Use When

Simple git operations (commit, push, branch) — use git directly
CI debugging that requires the exact GitHub runner environment — act uses Docker approximations
One-time file copy — don't use restic for simple cp operations
Project doesn't use conventional commits — git-cliff won't produce useful output

What ships with it

Read from the repository

Just SKILL.md. No reference files, no scripts.

Gives 0 of the 12 instructions most automation workflows skills give in ~1.4k tokens

Counted across 813 of the 1,214 authors here whose files we hold, read 2026-09-06

Use conventional commit message formatin 38 of 813, across 34 files
Write tests before implementing codein 26 of 813, across 12 files
Achieve at least 80 percent test coveragein 24 of 813, across 11 files
Mock external dependencies for unit testsin 22 of 813, across 10 files
Read product marketing context before asking questionsin 21 of 813, across 6 files
Implement rollback plans for every deploymentin 21 of 813, across 9 files
Follow the arrange-act-assert patternin 20 of 813, across 9 files
Delete branches after mergingin 20 of 813, across 18 files
Test all edge cases and error scenariosin 20 of 813, across 8 files
Use semantic selectors for UI testsin 19 of 813, across 7 files
Define sequence type and audience contextin 18 of 813, across 5 files
Monitor feature drift and prediction distribution driftin 18 of 813, across 5 files

Said here and by no other author read

use just for project task recipes
generate changelogs using git-cliff
manage GitHub resources using the gh CLI
create encrypted backups using restic
test Actions locally before pushing
use gh CLI for batch operations

Grouped from the skills themselves: near-identical wordings counted once, and counted by distinct author, so one author publishing three of these counts once. Length counted with cl100k_base; the agent that loads this file may tokenize it differently.