DevOps with geol as a GitHub Action

Integrating geol into your GitHub Actions workflow allows you to automatically monitor the end-of-life (EOL) status of your stack and fail the build if any product is no longer supported.

See it in action

Watch this video to see how geol integrates into GitHub Actions to provide clear EOL reporting and automated checks:

Why use geol in CI/CD?

• Security: Ensure no unsupported (and potentially unpatched) software is used in your environment.
• Compliance: Maintain an up-to-date inventory of your stack's lifecycle.
• Automation: Get alerted immediately when a product reaches its end-of-life.

Official GitHub Action

The easiest way to integrate geol is to use the official geol-action. It installs the binary and makes it available in your workflow path.

Workflow Example

Create a file named .github/workflows/geol-check.yml in your repository.

tip

It is highly recommended to include a schedule trigger (like the Monday morning example below). Since EOL dates are external events, your build should check for them even if you haven't pushed any new code.

name: Check EOL

on:
  push:
    branches: [ main ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ main ]
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 0 * * 1' # Run every Monday at midnight to catch new EOLs

jobs:
  check-eol:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Install geol
        uses: opt-nc/geol-action@v1
        with:
          version: 'v2.12.1' # Optional: specify a version or use 'latest'

      - name: Check stack EOL
        run: |
          geol check --strict

How it works

1. Installation: The opt-nc/geol-action step downloads the specified version of geol and adds it to the PATH.
2. Execution: You can then call geol directly in any subsequent run step.
3. Strict Mode: Adding the --strict flag to geol check is essential for CI/CD. It ensures that the command returns a non-zero exit code if any product is past its EOL date, which effectively "fails" the GitHub Action and alerts your team.
4. Schedule: By running this weekly, you ensure that "stable" projects are still monitored for underlying software obsolescence.

Go further

Automate Issue Generation

You can go beyond failing the build by automatically opening a GitHub Issue when your stack reaches EOL. This ensures the task is tracked in your backlog.

You can use a combination of geol check (capturing output to a file) and an action like peter-evans/create-issue-from-file:

      - name: Check stack EOL and save report
        id: geol_check
        continue-on-error: true
        run: |
          geol check --strict > eol-report.txt

      - name: Create Issue on EOL failure
        if: steps.geol_check.outcome == 'failure'
        uses: peter-evans/create-issue-from-file@v5
        with:
          title: "Critical: End-of-Life software detected in stack"
          content-filepath: eol-report.txt
          labels: |
            security
            obsolescence

For more details on how to configure your products and the .geol.yaml format, see the Learn the check command tutorial.