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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.

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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"

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Inputs

InputRequiredDefaultDescription
api-keyYes—ORCA API key (store as a repository secret)
api-urlYes—ORCA instance URL
source-idYes—UUID of the data source to scan
tableNoall tablesSpecific table to scan
min-scoreNo80Minimum quality score to pass (0-100)
fail-on-criticalNotrueFail the step if any critical alerts are found

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Outputs

OutputDescription
quality-scoreThe quality score from the scan (0-100)
alerts-countTotal number of alerts found
result-urlLink to results in the ORCA dashboard

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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 }}"

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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.

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Pass/fail behavior

The action exits with code 1 (fails the step) when either condition is met:
  1. Score threshold: Quality score is below min-score
  2. 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.

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Examples

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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

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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 }}

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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

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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

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How it works

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

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Secrets setup

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