TL;DR: Netlify's built-in Git integration is genuinely good — until you need it to do something slightly outside its happy path. The second your build process requires more than "install, build, deploy," you hit a wall.

📖 Reading time: ~30 min

What's in this article

Why You'd Want GitHub Actions Handling Your Netlify Deploys

What You Need Before Writing a Single Line of YAML

The Baseline Workflow File — Production Deploy on Main

Drop the file here and GitHub does the rest

Deploy Previews for Pull Requests — the Feature Worth the Setup

Why Deploy Previews Change How Your Team Reviews Frontend Work

Gating the Deploy on Tests — the Actual Reason to Do This

Injecting Build-Time Environment Variables Safely

Why You'd Want GitHub Actions Handling Your Netlify Deploys

Netlify's built-in Git integration is genuinely good — until you need it to do something slightly outside its happy path. The second your build process requires more than "install, build, deploy," you hit a wall.…