PayPal is executing a large-scale CI/CD platform consolidation, migrating all engineering teams — to Harness before a hard deprecation deadline Several of these BUs have existing pipelines authored in GitHub Actions (GHA). There is currently no native, low-friction path to migrate GHA workflows to Harness pipelines. We are requesting Harness invest in a GitHub Actions → Harness migration utility to reduce migration effort and accelerate adoption.

Problem Statement

Teams migrating from GitHub Actions to Harness today face a fully manual effort:

GHA workflow YAML (.github/workflows/*.yml) has no automated translation to Harness pipeline YAML

Developers must re-learn step syntax, trigger definitions, secrets references, environment variable handling, and artifact management from scratch

There is no tooling to inventory GHA workflows across repos and generate migration estimates

High migration friction directly threatens delivery timelines and increases DPE support burden

Requested Capability

We are requesting Harness build and ship a GitHub Actions → Harness Migration Utility with the following capabilities:

Scan a GitHub org or repo and inventory all .github/workflows/*.yml files. Output a migration complexity report classifying each workflow as Simple / Medium / Complex based on step count, custom actions used, matrix strategies, reusable workflows, and secrets usage.

Convert GHA workflow YAML to equivalent Harness pipeline YAML with best-effort mapping of:

on: triggers → Harness trigger definitions (push, PR, schedule, workflow_dispatch)

jobs: → Harness stages

steps: → Harness steps (Run, Plugin, or Build & Push steps)

env: and secrets.* → Harness variable and secret references

uses: (GitHub Actions marketplace) → equivalent Harness plugins or delegate steps, with an unmapped actions report for gaps

Each translated pipeline receives a confidence score (High / Medium / Low) indicating how much manual review is needed post-translation. Low-confidence items should surface specific callouts for the developer.

Expose the migration tool both as a CLI (harness migrate github-actions) for scripted bulk migrations and within the Harness platform UI for individual pipeline migrations — consistent with the existing Jenkins migration path.

Track which GHA workflows have been migrated, by whom, and to which Harness pipeline — surfaced in the Harness platform for program-level visibility.

Business Justification

Teams with GHA-based pipelines represent a long tail of migration work with limited support bandwidth. A native migration utility would:

Reduce per-pipeline migration time from days to hours for common patterns

Enable Teams to self-serve migration without requiring deops to build pipelines on their behalf

Accelerate Harness seat utilization and license realization