diff --git a/.github/workflows/physionet-build-test.yml b/.github/workflows/physionet-build-test.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..5baef030d6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/physionet-build-test.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+# a github action on the dev branch that performs a build - test in a docker container
+name: physionet-build-test
+
+on:
+  push:
+    branches:
+      - dev
+  pull_request:
+    branches:
+      - dev
+
+jobs:
+  container:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    container: debian:10
+    defaults:
+      run:
+        shell: bash
+    steps:
+      - name: checkout physionet-build repo
+        uses: actions/checkout@v2
+      - name: update packages
+        run: |
+          apt-get update --yes
+      - name: install and configure needed software
+        run: |
+          apt-get install sudo python3-dev python3-pip build-essential postgresql zip wget python-virtualenv --yes
+          ln -sT .env.example .env
+      - name: install repo dependencies
+        # add virtual env path to github_path so each run: process will see it
+        run: |
+          export VIRTUAL_ENV=/env3
+          virtualenv -p python3.7 $VIRTUAL_ENV
+          echo "$VIRTUAL_ENV/bin" >> $GITHUB_PATH
+          source $VIRTUAL_ENV/bin/activate
+          pip3 install -r requirements.txt
+      - name: install libseccomp-dev for syscall filtering
+        run: |
+          apt-get install libseccomp-dev
+      - name: setup postgres
+        run: |
+          service postgresql start
+          sudo -u postgres psql -c "create user physionet with superuser password 'password';" -U postgres
+          sudo -u postgres psql -c "create database physionet;" -U postgres
+      - name: install and setup wfdb
+        run: |
+          wget https://github.com/bemoody/wfdb/archive/10.6.2.tar.gz -O wfdb.tar.gz
+          tar -xf wfdb.tar.gz
+          (cd wfdb-* && ./configure --without-netfiles && make -C lib install && make -C data install)
+      - name: run linker for newly installed software
+        run: |
+          ldconfig
+      - name: install and setup lightwave
+        run: |
+          wget https://github.com/bemoody/lightwave/archive/bfe908a7f53434df61fd2444bf8c235e3e6226fc.tar.gz -O lightwave.tar.gz
+          tar -xf lightwave.tar.gz
+          (cd lightwave-* && make CGIDIR=/usr/local/bin sandboxed-server)
+          wget https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases/download/v0.23.0/geckodriver-v0.23.0-linux64.tar.gz
+      - name: install web driver - geckodriver
+        run: |
+          mkdir geckodriver
+          tar -xf geckodriver-v0.23.0-linux64.tar.gz -C geckodriver
+          echo "$PWD/geckodriver" >> $GITHUB_PATH
+      - name: setup and test physionet, check amount of code tested
+        run: |
+          python physionet-django/manage.py makemigrations --dry-run --no-input --check
+          python physionet-django/manage.py resetdb
+          python physionet-django/manage.py loaddemo
+          python physionet-django/manage.py test --verbosity=3 --keepdb
+          coverage run --source='.' physionet-django/manage.py test --keepdb
+          coverage report -m