Last9 Deployment Marker GitHub Action

Send deployment markers to Last9's Change Events API to track deployments on your observability dashboards.

Features

• 🚀 Simple Integration - Add deployment tracking in one step
• 📊 Rich Metadata - Automatically captures GitHub context (commit, workflow, actor, etc.)
• 🔄 Automatic Retries - Handles transient failures with exponential backoff
• 🔒 Secure - Automatic token masking in logs
• ⚡ Fast - Runs in Node 20 with minimal overhead
• 📝 Flexible - Support for custom attributes and multiple deployment stages

Usage

Basic Usage

Add this step to your workflow after deployment:

- name: Mark deployment in Last9
  uses: last9/deployment-marker-action@v1
  with:
    refresh_token: ${{ secrets.LAST9_REFRESH_TOKEN }}
    org_slug: 'your-org-slug'
    env: production

Track Both Start and Stop Events

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

      - name: Mark deployment start
        uses: last9/deployment-marker-action@v1
        with:
          refresh_token: ${{ secrets.LAST9_REFRESH_TOKEN }}
          org_slug: 'your-org-slug'
          env: production
          event_state: 'start'

      - name: Deploy application
        run: |
          # Your deployment commands here
          ./deploy.sh

      - name: Mark deployment complete
        if: always()
        uses: last9/deployment-marker-action@v1
        with:
          refresh_token: ${{ secrets.LAST9_REFRESH_TOKEN }}
          org_slug: 'your-org-slug'
          env: production
          event_state: 'stop'

With Explicit Service Name

For monorepos or repos with multiple services, override the default service name:

- name: Mark deployment
  uses: last9/deployment-marker-action@v1
  with:
    refresh_token: ${{ secrets.LAST9_REFRESH_TOKEN }}
    org_slug: 'your-org-slug'
    service_name: 'payment-service'
    env: production

With Custom Attributes

- name: Mark deployment
  uses: last9/deployment-marker-action@v1
  with:
    refresh_token: ${{ secrets.LAST9_REFRESH_TOKEN }}
    org_slug: 'your-org-slug'
    env: production
    custom_attributes: |
      {
        "version": "${{ github.ref_name }}",
        "team": "platform"
      }

Inputs

Input	Required	Default	Description
refresh_token	Yes	-	Last9 API refresh token (store in GitHub Secrets)
org_slug	Yes	-	Your Last9 organization slug
env	Yes	-	Deployment environment (e.g. production, staging). Must match your APM environment label exactly.
service_name	No	Repository name	Service name for APM correlation. Must match your APM service name exactly.
event_state	No	stop	Event state: start, stop, or both
event_name	No	deployment	Name for the deployment event
data_source_name	No	-	Last9 cluster/data source name
api_base_url	No	https://app.last9.io	Last9 API base URL
include_github_attributes	No	true	Include GitHub context attributes
custom_attributes	No	-	Additional attributes as JSON object
max_retry_attempts	No	3	Maximum number of retry attempts
retry_backoff_ms	No	1000	Initial retry backoff in milliseconds
max_retry_backoff_ms	No	30000	Maximum retry backoff in milliseconds

Outputs

Output	Description
success	Whether the deployment marker was sent successfully (true/false)
start_timestamp	ISO8601 timestamp of start event (if sent)
stop_timestamp	ISO8601 timestamp of stop event (if sent)

Setup

1. Generate a Last9 Refresh Token

Prerequisites:

• You must be an Admin user in your Last9 organization
• Editors and Viewers cannot generate refresh tokens

Steps:

1. Log in to Last9
2. Navigate to Settings → API Access
3. Click the Refresh Token tab
4. Click New token
5. Configure the token:
   • Name: Enter a descriptive name (e.g., github-actions-production)
   • Scope: Select Write (required for sending deployment markers)
6. Click Create
7. Important: Copy the token immediately - it will only be shown once and cannot be retrieved later
8. Store the token securely (you'll add it to GitHub Secrets in the next step)

Token Details:

• Refresh tokens don't expire but can be revoked by admins
• Access tokens generated from refresh tokens expire after 24 hours (automatically refreshed by this action)
• You can revoke tokens at any time from the API Access page

Security Best Practices:

• Use separate tokens for different environments (production, staging, etc.)
• Name tokens clearly to identify their purpose
• Revoke tokens immediately if compromised
• Regularly audit active tokens and remove unused ones

For more information, see the Last9 API documentation.

2. Add Token to GitHub Secrets

1. Go to your repository → Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions
2. Click New repository secret
3. Name: LAST9_REFRESH_TOKEN
4. Value: Paste your Last9 refresh token
5. Click Add secret

3. Add Action to Your Workflow

See Usage examples above.

APM Dashboard Correlation

The service_name and env attributes must match your APM service labels exactly for deployment markers to appear as overlays on Last9 dashboards.

• service_name: defaults to the repository name if not set
• env: must be provided explicitly (e.g. production, staging)

When they match, deployment markers appear as red vertical lines on your APM charts, making it easy to correlate deployments with changes in latency, error rate, and throughput.

GitHub Context Attributes

When include_github_attributes is true (default), the following attributes are automatically included:

• repository - Repository full name (e.g., owner/repo)
• service_name - From service_name input (defaults to repo name)
• env - From env input
• workflow - Workflow name
• run_id - Workflow run ID
• run_number - Workflow run number
• run_attempt - Workflow run attempt number
• commit_sha - Commit SHA
• ref - Git ref (branch or tag)
• commit_message - Commit message
• actor - GitHub username who triggered the workflow
• event_name - GitHub event that triggered the workflow

Error Handling

The action automatically retries transient failures (network errors, 5xx responses) with exponential backoff. If all retries fail, the action will fail the workflow by default.

To prevent deployment failures from blocking your workflow, set if: always():

- name: Mark deployment
  if: always()
  uses: last9/deployment-marker-action@v1
  with:
    refresh_token: ${{ secrets.LAST9_REFRESH_TOKEN }}
    org_slug: 'your-org-slug'
    env: production

Troubleshooting

"TOKEN_EXCHANGE_ERROR: Failed to exchange refresh token"

• Cause: Invalid or expired refresh token
• Solution: Generate a new refresh token in Last9 and update the GitHub Secret

"API_ERROR: API request failed with status 404"

• Cause: Invalid org_slug
• Solution: Verify your organization slug in Last9 settings

"NETWORK_ERROR: Connection failed"

• Cause: Temporary network issue or Last9 API unavailable
• Solution: The action will automatically retry. If it persists, check Last9 status page

Examples

Kubernetes Deployment

name: Deploy to Kubernetes

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Mark deployment start
        uses: last9/deployment-marker-action@v1
        with:
          refresh_token: ${{ secrets.LAST9_REFRESH_TOKEN }}
          org_slug: 'acme'
          service_name: 'api'
          env: production
          event_state: 'start'

      - name: Deploy to Kubernetes
        run: kubectl apply -f k8s/

      - name: Mark deployment complete
        if: always()
        uses: last9/deployment-marker-action@v1
        with:
          refresh_token: ${{ secrets.LAST9_REFRESH_TOKEN }}
          org_slug: 'acme'
          service_name: 'api'
          env: production
          event_state: 'stop'

Multi-Environment Deployment

name: Deploy

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      environment:
        description: 'Environment to deploy'
        required: true
        type: choice
        options:
          - staging
          - production

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: ${{ inputs.environment }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Deploy
        run: ./deploy.sh ${{ inputs.environment }}

      - name: Mark deployment in Last9
        uses: last9/deployment-marker-action@v1
        with:
          refresh_token: ${{ secrets.LAST9_REFRESH_TOKEN }}
          org_slug: 'acme'
          env: ${{ inputs.environment }}
          custom_attributes: |
            {
              "version": "${{ github.sha }}"
            }

Monorepo with Multiple Services

- name: Mark payment-service deployment
  uses: last9/deployment-marker-action@v1
  with:
    refresh_token: ${{ secrets.LAST9_REFRESH_TOKEN }}
    org_slug: 'acme'
    service_name: 'payment-service'
    env: production

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue or pull request.

License

MIT

Support

• 📖 Last9 Documentation
• 💬 GitHub Issues
• 📧 Last9 Support