Github Actions on Maceage's Blog

Automated Unreal Engine Build Server on AWS Part 3: Build

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is the final part of the series, continuing from creating a GitHub self-hosted runner base AMI and creating an AMI with a specific version of Unreal Engine. Everything now comes together: a published GitHub Release triggers a Spot Instance, which registers itself as a self-hosted runner, builds the project, uploads artefacts to S3, and tears itself down.

As always, the full code lives at: sawnoff-studios/unreal-build-server-image

This post covers how to use an EC2 Spot Instance GitHub Actions self-hosted runner:

Automated Unreal Engine Build Server on AWS Part 2: Unreal AMI

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This post continues from Part 1, where I created a base AMI with build tools installed. Now I’ll cover two critical pieces:

A Lambda function that automatically retrieves GitHub runner tokens (solving the token expiry problem)
An AMI with a specific Unreal Engine version installed, ready for GitHub Actions builds

The complete code repository is available at: sawnoff-studios/unreal-build-server-image

This post covers the Lambda used for retrieving self-hosted runner tokens from GitHub, as well as using the base AMI to install a specific version of Unreal Engine for building projects

Automated Unreal Engine Build Server on AWS Part 1: Base AMI

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

After completing my CG Spectrum Unreal Engine course, I wanted to automate the build and release process for my game prototype. While building locally, zipping artefacts, and uploading somewhere would have worked, I aimed for something more robust: trigger a GitHub release that automatically provisions a Spot Instance, builds the project, and uploads results to S3.

The Problem

My initial approach involved manually configuring an EC2 instance, installing dependencies by hand, and registering a GitHub self-hosted runner. I created an AMI from that instance and configured GitHub Actions to use it.

Static Website Monitoring

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In the previous post I covered the AWS resources behind my static website - including the S3 buckets collecting access logs for both the website itself and the CloudFront distribution in front of it.

Once those logs started accumulating, I wanted a way to interrogate them: which pages are people actually requesting? Where do requests come from? How much is the traffic costing me in data transfer? Copying .log files down and grepping them wasn’t going to scale.

Static Website Architecture

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

As mentioned in my welcome post, I’ve built plenty of websites over the years, most of them with a web server backed by a database. While looking for full-time work, I wanted a personal website – a single page with my details, credentials, and contact information. A web server with a database felt like overkill for that.

Then I found out that an indie game studio registered with an ABN also needs a web presence to justify the entitlement. And these days, a blog is trivially achievable with a static site generator such as the excellent Hugo.