2.1A Production-Ready Test Pipeline

The following workflow demonstrates a realistic CI pipeline for a web application with multiple test layers. Study each section carefully -- every line serves a purpose.

# .github/workflows/test-pipeline.yml
name: Test Pipeline

on:
  push:
    branches: [main, develop]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 6 * * 1-5'  # Weekdays at 6 AM UTC

env:
  NODE_ENV: test
  BASE_URL: https://staging.example.com

jobs:
  unit-tests:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 24
          cache: 'npm'
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run test:unit -- --coverage
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        if: always()
        with:
          name: unit-coverage
          path: coverage/

  integration-tests:
    needs: unit-tests
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    services:
      postgres:
        image: postgres:16
        env:
          POSTGRES_DB: test_db
          POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${{ secrets.DB_PASSWORD }}
        ports:
          - 5432:5432
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 24
          cache: 'npm'
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run test:integration
        env:
          DATABASE_URL: postgres://postgres:${{ secrets.DB_PASSWORD }}@localhost:5432/test_db

  browser-tests:
    needs: integration-tests
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      fail-fast: false
      matrix:
        browser: [chromium, firefox, webkit]
        shard: [1, 2, 3]
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 24
          cache: 'npm'
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npx playwright install --with-deps ${{ matrix.browser }}
      - run: npx playwright test --project=${{ matrix.browser }} --shard=${{ matrix.shard }}/3
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        if: failure()
        with:
          name: traces-${{ matrix.browser }}-${{ matrix.shard }}
          path: test-results/