feat: slash commands GitHub Actions post

blog-website/blog/2025-01-05-slash-command-your-deployment-with-github-actions/index.md

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+---
+slug: slash-command-your-deployment-with-github-actions
+title: 'Slash command your deployment with GitHub Actions'
+authors: johnnyreilly
+tags: [github actions, azure container apps]
+image: ./title-image.png
+hide_table_of_contents: false
+description: 'Slash commands are a great way to interact with your GitHub issues. In this post, we look at how to use slash commands to deploy an Azure Container Apps service with GitHub Actions.'
+---
+
+In the world of computing, slash commands have a proud and noble history. They are a way to interact with a system by typing a command into a chat or terminal, usually with a `/` preceding the command; hence the name "slash commands@. [GitHub has its own slash commands](https://docs.github.com/en/issues/tracking-your-work-with-issues/using-issues/about-slash-commands) that you can use in issues and pull requests. They are, in truth, quite limited.
+
+However, through clever use of the GitHub Actions platform, it's possible to build something quite powerful which is "slash-command-shaped". In this post, we'll look at how to implement a `/deploy` slash command which, when invoked in a pull request, will deploy an Azure Container App with GitHub Actions.
+
+![title image reading "Slash command your deployment with GitHub Actions" with the GitHub Actions logo](title-image.png)
+
+The technique we'll use is covering a deployment usecase, as we'll see, it could be adapted to many other scenarios.
+
+<!--truncate-->
+
+## First a bit about nuns
+
+I have an aunt that is a nun, and I've been [overengineering her convent's website for years](../2015-02-11-the-convent-with-continuous-delivery/index.md). Most of the time the site moulders away, but every now and then I get a flurry of requests for minor changes. It deploys thanks to the magic of continuous deployment. But there's only a single environment; production or "main".
+
+Sometimes I'd like to eyeball a change before I've shipped it. Not always, sometimes. A particular case where this is useful, is when [Renovate](https://www.mend.io/renovate/) has submitted a dependency upgrade PR, and I'd like to see the impact without having to install and run it locally somewhere. Or instead of me hitting submit with crossed fingers.
+
+So I decided it was time that the "Convent with Continuous Delivery™️" had a staging environment. And I decided that I'd like to be able to deploy it by entering the slash command `/deploy` in a pull request comment. Like this:
+
+![screenshot of pull request comments](screenshot-pull-request-comments.png)