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Resource Usage and Optimization Opportunities in Workflows of GitHub Actions.

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Title: Resource Usage and Optimization Opportunities in Workflows of GitHub Actions.
Authors: Bouzenia, Islem1 fi_bouzenia@esi.dz, Pradel, Michael1 michael@binaervarianz.de
Source: ICSE: International Conference on Software Engineering. 2024, p1-12. 12p.
Subjects: Workflow, Github Inc., Computer software, Computer software development, Computer security
Abstract: Continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) has become a prevalent practice in software development. GitHub Actions is emerging as a popular platform for implementing CI/CD pipelines, called workflows, especially because the platform offers 2,000 minutes of computation for free to public repositories each month. To understand what these resources are used for and whether CI/CD could be more efficient, this paper presents the first comprehensive empirical study of resource usage and optimization opportunities of GitHub Action workflows. Our findings show that CI/CD imposes significant costs, e.g., $504 per year for an average paid-tier repository. The majority of the used resources is consumed by testing and building (91.2%), which is triggered by pull requests (50.7%), pushes (30.9%), and regularly scheduled workflows (15.5%). While existing optimizations, such as caching (adopted by 32.9% of paid-tier repositories), demonstrate a positive impact, they overall remain underutilized. This result underscores the need for enhanced documentation and tools to guide developers toward more resource-efficient workflows. Moreover, we show that relatively simple changes in the platform, such as deactivating scheduled workflows when repositories are inactive, could result in reductions of execution time between 1.1% and 31.6% over the impacted workflows. Overall, we envision our findings to help improve the resource efficiency of CI/CD pipelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of ICSE: International Conference on Software Engineering is the property of Association for Computing Machinery and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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  Data: Resource Usage and Optimization Opportunities in Workflows of GitHub Actions.
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Bouzenia%2C+Islem%22">Bouzenia, Islem</searchLink><relatesTo>1</relatesTo><i> fi_bouzenia@esi.dz</i><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Pradel%2C+Michael%22">Pradel, Michael</searchLink><relatesTo>1</relatesTo><i> michael@binaervarianz.de</i>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="JN" term="%22ICSE%3A+International+Conference+on+Software+Engineering%22">ICSE: International Conference on Software Engineering</searchLink>. 2024, p1-12. 12p.
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Workflow%22">Workflow</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Github+Inc%2E%22">Github Inc.</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Computer+software%22">Computer software</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Computer+software+development%22">Computer software development</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Computer+security%22">Computer security</searchLink>
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) has become a prevalent practice in software development. GitHub Actions is emerging as a popular platform for implementing CI/CD pipelines, called workflows, especially because the platform offers 2,000 minutes of computation for free to public repositories each month. To understand what these resources are used for and whether CI/CD could be more efficient, this paper presents the first comprehensive empirical study of resource usage and optimization opportunities of GitHub Action workflows. Our findings show that CI/CD imposes significant costs, e.g., $504 per year for an average paid-tier repository. The majority of the used resources is consumed by testing and building (91.2%), which is triggered by pull requests (50.7%), pushes (30.9%), and regularly scheduled workflows (15.5%). While existing optimizations, such as caching (adopted by 32.9% of paid-tier repositories), demonstrate a positive impact, they overall remain underutilized. This result underscores the need for enhanced documentation and tools to guide developers toward more resource-efficient workflows. Moreover, we show that relatively simple changes in the platform, such as deactivating scheduled workflows when repositories are inactive, could result in reductions of execution time between 1.1% and 31.6% over the impacted workflows. Overall, we envision our findings to help improve the resource efficiency of CI/CD pipelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
– Name: AbstractSuppliedCopyright
  Label:
  Group: Ab
  Data: <i>Copyright of ICSE: International Conference on Software Engineering is the property of Association for Computing Machinery and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.</i> (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1145/3597503.3623303
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      – Code: eng
        Text: English
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      Pagination:
        PageCount: 12
        StartPage: 1
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Workflow
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Github Inc.
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Computer software
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Computer software development
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Computer security
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: Resource Usage and Optimization Opportunities in Workflows of GitHub Actions.
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            NameFull: Pradel, Michael
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            – D: 01
              M: 05
              Text: 2024
              Type: published
              Y: 2024
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: ICSE: International Conference on Software Engineering
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