ECS Service Deploy

A lightweight GitHub Action for redeploying ECS services without the ceremony of full task definition management.

When to Use This

Use Case	This Action	Official ECS Action
Force redeploy to pull :latest	✅ Simple	❌ Requires task definition file
Quick rollback to known task definition	✅ Pass ARN	❌ Need to rebuild definition file
Scale service during deploy	✅ One parameter	❌ Separate step needed
Full CI/CD with image build	❌ Not the goal	✅ Built for this

TL;DR: Use this for simple redeploys. Use the official action for full build-register-deploy pipelines.

Inputs

Input	Description	Required	Default
cluster_arn	ARN of the ECS cluster	Yes	—
service_name	Name of the ECS service	Yes	—
region	AWS region (uses env AWS_REGION if not set)	No	—
force_new_deployment	Force new deployment even if task definition unchanged	No	true
task_definition_arn	Deploy specific task definition ARN	No	—
desired_count	Set desired task count	No	—
wait	Wait for service to stabilize	No	true

Outputs

Output	Description
deployment_id	ID of the created deployment
task_definition	Task definition ARN used in deployment

Prerequisites

Configure AWS credentials before using this action:

- name: Configure AWS credentials
  uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v4
  with:
    role-to-arn: arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/my-role
    aws-region: us-east-1

Required IAM permissions:

• ecs:UpdateService
• ecs:DescribeServices (if wait: true)

Examples

Pull :latest and Restart (Dev/Staging)

The most common use case — your task definition points to :latest and you want ECS to pull the new image:

- name: Redeploy to pull latest image
  uses: ikhrustalev/ecs-redeploy-service@v1
  with:
    cluster_arn: arn:aws:ecs:us-east-1:123456789012:cluster/dev-cluster
    service_name: api-service

Quick Rollback

Deploy a specific task definition (useful for rollbacks):

- name: Rollback to previous version
  uses: ikhrustalev/ecs-redeploy-service@v1
  with:
    cluster_arn: arn:aws:ecs:us-east-1:123456789012:cluster/prod-cluster
    service_name: api-service
    task_definition_arn: arn:aws:ecs:us-east-1:123456789012:task-definition/api:42

Scale During Deployment

Adjust desired count while redeploying:

- name: Scale up and redeploy
  uses: ikhrustalev/ecs-redeploy-service@v1
  with:
    cluster_arn: arn:aws:ecs:us-east-1:123456789012:cluster/prod-cluster
    service_name: api-service
    desired_count: 4

Fire and Forget (No Wait)

Skip waiting for stability — useful in non-critical environments or when you have separate monitoring:

- name: Trigger redeploy without waiting
  uses: ikhrustalev/ecs-redeploy-service@v1
  with:
    cluster_arn: arn:aws:ecs:us-east-1:123456789012:cluster/dev-cluster
    service_name: api-service
    wait: false

Multi-Region Deploy

Deploy to a specific region:

- name: Deploy to EU region
  uses: ikhrustalev/ecs-redeploy-service@v1
  with:
    cluster_arn: arn:aws:ecs:eu-west-1:123456789012:cluster/eu-cluster
    service_name: api-service
    region: eu-west-1

Full Pipeline Example

name: Deploy to Staging

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      id-token: write
      contents: read

    steps:
      - name: Configure AWS credentials
        uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v4
        with:
          role-to-assume: arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/github-deploy-role
          aws-region: us-east-1

      - name: Build and push image
        run: |
          # Your build logic here
          docker build -t my-repo:latest .
          docker push my-repo:latest

      - name: Redeploy ECS service
        uses: ikhrustalev/ecs-redeploy-service@v1
        with:
          cluster_arn: arn:aws:ecs:us-east-1:123456789012:cluster/staging
          service_name: api-service

      - name: Notify on success
        run: echo "Deployed with task definition ${{ steps.deploy.outputs.task_definition }}"

License

MIT