How to Accelerate GitHub Actions CI/CD Pipelines with Artifact Caching for Docker, Helm, Git, and More

Slow builds, long deployments, and rising cloud bills are common problems in modern CI/CD pipelines. Every Git clone, Docker pull, or package fetch adds latency and traffic, leading to slower builds and higher costs.

In this hands-on webinar, Thijs Feryn (Technical Evangelist) and Alve Elde (Principal Engineer) from Varnish Software show how to speed up GitHub Actions pipelines using caching strategies with GitOps deployments. The session includes a live demo where microservices are built, packaged, and deployed to a Kubernetes cluster with GitHub Actions, a self-hosted GitHub Actions runner, and ArgoCD. You’ll see how to deploy an Artifact Cache to reduce traffic to GitHub and artifact repositories hosted in JFrog Artifactory and Sonatype Nexus.

Key caching scenarios include:

• Git clones and fetches
• Docker images and Helm charts
• NPM packages, Go modules, and Rust packages

You’ll also learn how a Varnish-powered artifact caching layer accelerates GitHub Actions, shortens deployment times, and lowers infrastructure and egress costs, by positioning caches exactly where they’re needed for maximum speed and efficiency.