Hi! I’ve created a solution to instantly trigger a GitHub Actions pipeline whenever a specific catalog item “Request Pipeline for DevOps Team” is submitted in ServiceNow.
I started studying on ServiceNow University about ten days ago, and I’m really impressed with the power of the platform. I know this integration could be done more easily with different licensing options, but as I said, my instance is very limited, so I wanted to learn by building everything myself.
My approach
- Created a GitHub Actions pipeline configured with workflow_dispatch, so it can be triggered externally.
- Built a Flow Designer flow that populates a record in a custom Pipeline Task table.
- In this table, I added two important fields:
- the sys_id of the specific catalog request,
- a boolean field (dispatch) to indicate whether the GitHub workflow should be triggered.
- Then I created a Business Rule:
- When the catalog item DevOps Request a Pipeline is submitted, the BR creates a record in my Pipeline Task table.
- It checks if dispatch = true and if sys_id is populated.
- If both conditions are met, it sends the sys_id to GitHub using the GitHub API.
- I used GitHub Secrets to avoid exposing usernames, passwords, environment variables or endpoints.
Additional steps I implemented
- I created a dedicated DevOps module inside the application menu so the team can easily access pipeline‑related tasks.
- I also created custom roles to control who can trigger, view, or manage pipeline tasks.
- Finally, I set up user groups (e.g., DevOps Team, Pipeline Requestors) and assigned the appropriate roles to keep access structured and secure.
Purpose of this post
This is just me sharing my experience as a beginner and trying to learn from other people who work with ServiceNow.
I know there are ootb, simpler ways to achieve this with the right licensing, but since I’m still learning, I wanted to build everything manually and understand how all the pieces connect.
If anyone has different approaches, best practices, or suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
Thanks everyone — hugs!
