I built a visual node system for CI/CD that supports GitHub Actions
Hey HN, About a year ago I shared a first MVP of a visual node-based system for CI/CD pipelines that I've been very passionate about. I've been building on it since, and it's now live. I've always liked building pipelines and workflows, but I've never liked writing YAML for anything more than simple linear tasks. Branching, conditions, loops, or trying to just run certain things in parallel always gets messy. So I built Actionforge, a visual node system to tackle some of these pain points. Instead of writing YAML yourself, you build workflows as graphs. While Actionforge still uses YAML…
In plain words
Actionforge is a visual node-based editor for building GitHub Actions CI/CD pipelines. Instead of writing YAML, users create workflows as graphs, making it easier to handle branching, conditions, loops, and parallel execution. The system generates YAML that runs natively on GitHub runners without requiring additional infrastructure. It's designed for developers who find traditional YAML pipeline configuration tedious and error-prone.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hey HN, About a year ago I shared a first MVP of a visual node-based system for CI/CD pipelines that I've been very passionate about. I've been building on it since, and it's now live. I've always liked building pipelines and workflows, but I've never liked writing YAML for anything more than simple linear tasks. Branching, conditions, loops, or trying to just run certain things in parallel always gets messy. So I built Actionforge, a visual node system to tackle some of these pain points. Instead of writing YAML yourself, you build workflows as graphs. While Actionforge still uses YAML under the hood, the visual editor makes them much easier to maintain. These graphs also run natively on GitHub runners with no middleman. What used to take me hours of fiddling with indentation and string syntax, now only takes me minutes to create a full build pipeline. The editor comes with a visual debugger so you can run and troubleshoot workflows locally before deploying them. I dogfood it heavily, so Actionforge builds itself. Here's one of its graphs for GitHub Actions. https://www.actionforge.dev/example The runner is written in Go, and is open source on GitHub (including GH Attestation and SBOM for full transparency). Would love to hear what you think. Happy building!
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