Quality Gate (GitHub Action)

Overview

The ORCA Quality Gate is a GitHub Action that runs data quality scans as part of your CI/CD pipeline. It scans a connected data source, evaluates the quality score against a configurable threshold, and posts results as a PR comment. Use it to prevent merging code that degrades data quality.

Quick start

Add the action to any workflow file in .github/workflows/:

name: Data Quality Check
on: [pull_request]

jobs:
  quality-gate:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: ORCA Quality Gate
        uses: klavest/orca-quality-gate@v1
        with:
          api-key: ${{ secrets.ORCA_API_KEY }}
          api-url: ${{ secrets.ORCA_API_URL }}
          source-id: "a1b2c3d4-5678-9abc-def0-1234567890ab"

Inputs

Input	Required	Default	Description
`api-key`	Yes	—	ORCA API key (store as a repository secret)
`api-url`	Yes	—	ORCA instance URL
`source-id`	Yes	—	UUID of the data source to scan
`table`	No	all tables	Specific table to scan
`min-score`	No	`80`	Minimum quality score to pass (0-100)
`fail-on-critical`	No	`true`	Fail the step if any critical alerts are found

Outputs

Output	Description
`quality-score`	The quality score from the scan (0-100)
`alerts-count`	Total number of alerts found
`result-url`	Link to results in the ORCA dashboard

Using outputs in subsequent steps

- name: ORCA Quality Gate
  id: orca
  uses: klavest/orca-quality-gate@v1
  with:
    api-key: ${{ secrets.ORCA_API_KEY }}
    api-url: ${{ secrets.ORCA_API_URL }}
    source-id: "a1b2c3d4-5678-9abc-def0-1234567890ab"

- name: Print score
  run: echo "Quality score is ${{ steps.orca.outputs.quality-score }}"

PR comment

On pull request events, the action automatically posts (or updates) a comment on the PR with scan results:

## ORCA Quality Gate Results

| Metric | Value | Status |
|--------|-------|--------|
| Quality Score | 87/100 | [PASS] |
| Critical Alerts | 0 | [OK] |
| Warnings | 2 | [WARNING] |

### Top Issues
- `email`: 12% null rate exceeds 5% threshold
- `signup_date`: 3 rows with future dates detected

View full results in ORCA

---
Powered by ORCA | Quality threshold: 80

The comment is updated in place on re-runs so your PR stays clean.

Pass/fail behavior

The action exits with code 1 (fails the step) when either condition is met:

Score threshold: Quality score is below min-score
Critical alerts: Any critical-severity alerts exist and fail-on-critical is true

Both conditions are evaluated independently. A scan can fail on critical alerts even if the score is above the threshold.

Examples

Scan a specific table

- name: ORCA Quality Gate
  uses: klavest/orca-quality-gate@v1
  with:
    api-key: ${{ secrets.ORCA_API_KEY }}
    api-url: ${{ secrets.ORCA_API_URL }}
    source-id: ${{ secrets.ORCA_SOURCE_ID }}
    table: "orders"
    min-score: 90

Matrix strategy for multi-source scanning

Scan multiple data sources in parallel:

name: Data Quality
on: [pull_request]

jobs:
  quality-gate:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      matrix:
        source:
          - id: "src-warehouse-prod"
            name: "Warehouse"
            threshold: 85
          - id: "src-crm-prod"
            name: "CRM"
            threshold: 90
          - id: "src-events-prod"
            name: "Events"
            threshold: 75
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: "ORCA: ${{ matrix.source.name }}"
        uses: klavest/orca-quality-gate@v1
        with:
          api-key: ${{ secrets.ORCA_API_KEY }}
          api-url: ${{ secrets.ORCA_API_URL }}
          source-id: ${{ matrix.source.id }}
          min-score: ${{ matrix.source.threshold }}

Warn without failing

Set min-score to 0 and fail-on-critical to false to run the scan and post the PR comment without blocking the build:

- name: ORCA Quality Gate (advisory)
  uses: klavest/orca-quality-gate@v1
  with:
    api-key: ${{ secrets.ORCA_API_KEY }}
    api-url: ${{ secrets.ORCA_API_URL }}
    source-id: ${{ secrets.ORCA_SOURCE_ID }}
    min-score: 0
    fail-on-critical: false

Scheduled quality check

Run quality scans on a cron schedule outside of PRs:

name: Nightly Quality Scan
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 6 * * *"

jobs:
  scan:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: ORCA Quality Gate
        uses: klavest/orca-quality-gate@v1
        with:
          api-key: ${{ secrets.ORCA_API_KEY }}
          api-url: ${{ secrets.ORCA_API_URL }}
          source-id: ${{ secrets.ORCA_SOURCE_ID }}
          min-score: 80

How it works

Sets up Python 3.11 and installs orca-cli
Runs orca scan --wait --format json against the specified source
Parses the JSON output to extract the quality score and alerts
Sets GitHub Action outputs (quality-score, alerts-count, result-url)
On pull request events, posts or updates a Markdown comment on the PR
Exits with code 0 (pass) or 1 (fail) based on thresholds

Secrets setup

Store your ORCA credentials as GitHub repository secrets:

Go to Settings > Secrets and variables > Actions
Add ORCA_API_KEY with your ORCA API key
Add ORCA_API_URL with your ORCA instance URL (e.g. https://api.orca-klavest.app)
Optionally add ORCA_SOURCE_ID if you want to reference it as a secret

Getting started

Features

Administration

Integrations

Security & compliance

Developer Tools

Methodology

Overview

Quick start

Inputs

Outputs

Using outputs in subsequent steps

PR comment

Pass/fail behavior

Examples

Scan a specific table

Matrix strategy for multi-source scanning

Warn without failing

Scheduled quality check

How it works

Secrets setup

​Overview

​Quick start

​Inputs

​Outputs

​Using outputs in subsequent steps

​PR comment

​Pass/fail behavior

​Examples

​Scan a specific table

​Matrix strategy for multi-source scanning

​Warn without failing

​Scheduled quality check

​How it works

​Secrets setup

Overview

Quick start

Inputs

Outputs

Using outputs in subsequent steps

PR comment

Pass/fail behavior

Examples

Scan a specific table

Matrix strategy for multi-source scanning

Warn without failing

Scheduled quality check

How it works

Secrets setup