Automate publishing your test and coverage reports to an Amazon S3 bucket by swapping out a manual upload step with the prebuilt jakejarvis/s3-sync-action in your GitHub Actions workflow.
1. Current Workflow: Placeholder Upload Your existing reports-s3 job runs after unit-testing and code-coverage, downloads artifacts, merges them, and uses a placeholder echo command:
jobs : reports-s3 : needs : [ unit-testing , code-coverage ] name : AWS S3 - Upload Reports runs-on : ubuntu-latest continue-on-error : true steps : - name : Download Mocha Test Artifact uses : actions/download-artifact@v3 with : name : Mocha-Test-Result - name : Download Code Coverage Artifact uses : actions/download-artifact@v3 with : name : Code-Coverage-Result - name : Merge Test Files run : | ls -ltr mkdir reports-${{ github.sha }} mv cobertura-coverage.xml reports-${{ github.sha }}/ mv test-results.xml reports-${{ github.sha }}/ ls -ltr reports-${{ github.sha }}/ - name : Upload to AWS S3 run : echo "uploading..."
We’ll replace the final step with the S3 Sync action.
2. Selecting the S3 Sync Action 2.1 Search GitHub Marketplace In your repository’s GitHub Marketplace , search for S3 and choose jakejarvis/s3-sync-action :
Inspect the action’s README for the inputs:
uses : jakejarvis/s3-sync-action@master with : args : --acl public-read --follow-symlinks --delete env : AWS_S3_BUCKET : ${{ secrets.AWS_S3_BUCKET }} AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID : ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }} AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY : ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }} AWS_REGION : 'us-west-1' # defaults to us-east-1 SOURCE_DIR : 'public' # defaults to repository root DEST_DIR : '' # optional destination path
Variable Description Default / Required AWS_S3_BUCKET Target S3 bucket name Required AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID AWS IAM access key ID Required AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY AWS IAM secret access key Required AWS_REGION AWS region where bucket resides Optional (us-east-1) SOURCE_DIR Directory to sync Optional (.) DEST_DIR Path in bucket for uploads Optional (root)
Using the --delete flag will remove files in the bucket that are not present in your source directory. Double-check your SOURCE_DIR before enabling deletion.
3. Updated Workflow: S3 Sync Step Replace the placeholder with the S3 Sync action. Here’s the complete reports-s3 job:
jobs : reports-s3 : needs : [ unit-testing , code-coverage ] name : AWS S3 - Upload Reports runs-on : ubuntu-latest continue-on-error : true steps : - name : Download Mocha Test Artifact uses : actions/download-artifact@v3 with : name : Mocha-Test-Result - name : Download Code Coverage Artifact uses : actions/download-artifact@v3 with : name : Code-Coverage-Result - name : Merge Test Files run : | ls -ltr mkdir reports-${{ github.sha }} mv cobertura-coverage.xml reports-${{ github.sha }}/ mv test-results.xml reports-${{ github.sha }}/ ls -ltr reports-${{ github.sha }}/ - name : Upload to AWS S3 uses : jakejarvis/s3-sync-action@master with : args : --follow-symlinks --delete env : AWS_S3_BUCKET : solar-system-reports-bucket AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID : ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }} AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY : ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }} AWS_REGION : 'us-east-1' SOURCE_DIR : 'reports-${{ github.sha }}' DEST_DIR : 'reports-${{ github.sha }}'
4. Setting Up AWS S3 4.1 Creating the Bucket In the AWS S3 console , create a bucket named solar-system-reports-bucket (or your preferred name) in the desired region:
5. Storing AWS Credentials as GitHub Secrets Add your AWS keys under Settings > Secrets and variables > Actions :
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_IDAWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
Storing credentials in GitHub Secrets ensures they remain encrypted and aren’t exposed in your workflow logs.
6. Running the Workflow Commit and push your changes. The reports-s3 job will queue after unit-testing and code-coverage complete:
6.1 Merge Step Log Run ls -ltr total 24 -rw-r--r-- 1 runner docker 3347 Oct 22 07:44 test-results.xml -rw-r--r-- 1 runner docker 597 Oct 22 07:44 cobertura-coverage.xml ...
6.2 S3 Sync Step Log Run jakejarvis/s3-sync-action@master /usr/bin/docker run --name e8d... \ --workdir /github/workspace --rm ... \ --follow-symlinks --delete upload: reports-1374785c0a9719be70ed2e7ba3481dabd72429c6/test-results.xml to s3://solar-system-reports-bucket/reports-1374785c0a9719be70ed2e7ba3481dabd72429c6/test-results.xml
Once complete, the AWS S3 upload step shows success:
Because jakejarvis/s3-sync-action is a Docker-based custom action, GitHub builds the container at runtime. You’ll see this as an extra “build” step in the logs:
8. Verifying in S3 8.1 Inspect the Commit-SHA Folder After syncing, refresh your bucket to see a folder named after the commit SHA:
8.2 Check Uploaded Files Open the folder to confirm your XML reports are present:
9. Next Steps & Alternatives You can apply the same pattern to other cloud storage solutions like Azure Blob Storage . Always store credentials securely as GitHub Secrets:
Before building your own plugin, explore the GitHub Marketplace —you may find a prebuilt action that meets your requirements:
Links and References 
