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Automate Your Canister Deployments with CycleOps and ic-deploy-actions

· 3 min read
Steve Kimoi
Steve Kimoi
Developer

CI/CD pipelines just got a lot easier on the Internet Computer.

In this post, I'm going to show you how you can easily automate your deployments using CycleOps and IC Deploy Actions

No need to manually run dfx deploy command on your terminal, or spend hours configuring your custom github actions. Just plug in and use.

Hi there, I'm Steve Kimoi, an ICP developer behind tools like generate-did, DNS Config Generator, ckTokens Minter and other ICP developer toolkits.

Today I'm walking through how CycleOps pairs with the ic-deploy-actions GitHub Action to make Internet Computer deployments hands-off.

What We Shipped​

You can now easily automate your deployments to Internet Computer with these simple steps using ic-deploy-actions

  • With just simple steps automation, you're sorted for life: combination of CycleOps with ic-deploy-actions helps you build & automatically deploy your canisters on every push.
  • Secure auth: PEM keys are stored in GitHub Secrets, keeping credentials out of source control.
  • Flexible workflows: you get to ship a single canister or multiple canisters within the same pipeline.
  • Repeatable delivery: every merge to the default branch automatically updates your production code, thus making you stay consistent.

Why It Matters​

Manual deployments get messy when your project or team grows. This workflow keeps every step in GitHub, removes copy-paste scripts, and uses familiar GitHub Actions. What you merge is what goes live on mainnet.

How You Can Use It​

1. Create or Add a Canister in CycleOps​

  • Spin up the canister from your CycleOps dashboard - full docs live here.
  • Run a one-time deploy from your workstation so the canister has initial code on mainnet.

2. Wire Up ic-deploy-actions​

Create .github/workflows/deploy.yml in your repo and paste in this workflow:

name: Deploy to IC

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Deploy to IC
        uses: Stephen-Kimoi/ic-deploy-action/action@v0.1.1
        with:
          pem_key: ${{ secrets.IC_PEM_KEY }}
          network: ic
          canister_name: your_backend_canister_name
          deploy_frontend: "true"
          deploy_backend: "true"
          frontend_dir: src/your_frontend_dir/dist
          backend_package: your_backend_package
          frontend_package: your_frontend_package
          frontend_src_dir: src/your_frontend_dir

Generate a PEM key and add it to your GitHub secrets:

dfx identity new cicd-identity --storage-mode=plaintext
dfx identity export cicd-identity > cicd-identity.pem
base64 -i cicd-identity.pem > cicd-identity.pem.base64

Copy the Base64 output into a IC_PEM_KEY repository secret and you're done.

That's it - every push to main now ships straight to the Internet Computer. CycleOps handles monitoring and top-ups, while ic-deploy-actions keeps builds and deployments flowing.

✅ Ready to try it?​

  1. Create a canister in CycleOps
  2. Add ic-deploy-actions to your repo
  3. Push to main and watch your deployment go live