Note: GitHub-hosted runners are not currently supported on GitHub Enterprise Server. You can see more information about planned future support on the GitHub public roadmap.
Introduction
This guide shows you how to create a workflow that performs continuous integration (CI) for your Java project using the Gradle build system. The workflow you create will allow you to see when commits to a pull request cause build or test failures against your default branch; this approach can help ensure that your code is always healthy. You can extend your CI workflow to cache files and upload artifacts from a workflow run.
GitHub-hosted runners have a tools cache with pre-installed software, which includes Java Development Kits (JDKs) and Gradle. For a list of software and the pre-installed versions for JDK and Gradle, see "Specifications for GitHub-hosted runners".
Prerequisites
You should be familiar with YAML and the syntax for GitHub Actions. For more information, see:
We recommend that you have a basic understanding of Java and the Gradle framework. For more information, see Getting Started in the Gradle documentation.
Using self-hosted runners on GitHub Enterprise Server
When using setup actions (such as actions/setup-LANGUAGE
) on GitHub Enterprise Server with self-hosted runners, you might need to set up the tools cache on runners that do not have internet access. For more information, see "Setting up the tool cache on self-hosted runners without internet access."
Using the Gradle starter workflow
GitHub provides a Gradle starter workflow that will work for most Gradle-based Java projects. For more information, see the Gradle starter workflow.
To get started quickly, you can choose the preconfigured Gradle starter workflow when you create a new workflow. For more information, see the "GitHub Actions quickstart."
You can also add this workflow manually by creating a new file in the .github/workflows
directory of your repository.
# This workflow uses actions that are not certified by GitHub.
# They are provided by a third-party and are governed by
# separate terms of service, privacy policy, and support
# documentation.
name: Java CI
on: [push]
jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
- name: Set up JDK 11
uses: actions/setup-java@v2
with:
java-version: '11'
distribution: 'adopt'
- name: Validate Gradle wrapper
uses: gradle/wrapper-validation-action@e6e38bacfdf1a337459f332974bb2327a31aaf4b
- name: Build with Gradle
uses: gradle/gradle-build-action@937999e9cc2425eddc7fd62d1053baf041147db7
with:
arguments: build
This workflow performs the following steps:
- The
checkout
step downloads a copy of your repository on the runner. - The
setup-java
step configures the Java 11 JDK by Adoptium. - The "Validate Gradle wrapper" step validates the checksums of Gradle Wrapper JAR files present in the source tree.
- The "Build with Gradle" step does a build using the
gradle/gradle-build-action
action provided by the Gradle organization on GitHub. The action takes care of invoking Gradle, collecting results, and caching state between jobs. For more information seegradle/gradle-build-action
.
The default starter workflows are excellent starting points when creating your build and test workflow, and you can customize the starter workflow to suit your project’s needs.
Running on a different operating system
The starter workflow configures jobs to run on Linux, using the GitHub-hosted ubuntu-latest
runners. You can change the runs-on
key to run your jobs on a different operating system. For example, you can use the GitHub-hosted Windows runners.
runs-on: windows-latest
Or, you can run on the GitHub-hosted macOS runners.
runs-on: macos-latest
You can also run jobs in Docker containers, or you can provide a self-hosted runner that runs on your own infrastructure. For more information, see "Workflow syntax for GitHub Actions."
Specifying the JVM version and architecture
The starter workflow sets up the PATH
to contain OpenJDK 8 for the x64 platform. If you want to use a different version of Java, or target a different architecture (x64
or x86
), you can use the setup-java
action to choose a different Java runtime environment.
For example, to use version 11 of the JDK provided by Adoptium for the x64 platform, you can use the setup-java
action and configure the java-version
, distribution
and architecture
parameters to '11'
, 'adopt'
and x64
.
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
- name: Set up JDK 11 for x64
uses: actions/setup-java@v2
with:
java-version: '11'
distribution: 'adopt'
architecture: x64
For more information, see the setup-java
action.
Building and testing your code
You can use the same commands that you use locally to build and test your code.
The starter workflow will run the build
task by default. In the default Gradle configuration, this command will download dependencies, build classes, run tests, and package classes into their distributable format, for example, a JAR file.
If you use different commands to build your project, or you want to use a different task, you can specify those. For example, you may want to run the package
task that's configured in your ci.gradle file.
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
- uses: actions/setup-java@v2
with:
java-version: '11'
distribution: 'adopt'
- name: Validate Gradle wrapper
uses: gradle/wrapper-validation-action@e6e38bacfdf1a337459f332974bb2327a31aaf4b
- name: Run the Gradle package task
uses: gradle/gradle-build-action@937999e9cc2425eddc7fd62d1053baf041147db7
with:
arguments: -b ci.gradle package
Caching dependencies
When using GitHub-hosted runners, your build dependencies can be cached to speed up your workflow runs. After a successful run, the gradle/gradle-build-action
caches important parts of the Gradle user home directory. In future jobs, the cache will be restored so that build scripts won't need to be recompiled and dependencies won't need to be downloaded from remote package repositories.
Caching is enabled by default when using the gradle/gradle-build-action
action. For more information, see gradle/gradle-build-action
.
Packaging workflow data as artifacts
After your build has succeeded and your tests have passed, you may want to upload the resulting Java packages as a build artifact. This will store the built packages as part of the workflow run, and allow you to download them. Artifacts can help you test and debug pull requests in your local environment before they're merged. For more information, see "Persisting workflow data using artifacts."
Gradle will usually create output files like JARs, EARs, or WARs in the build/libs
directory. You can upload the contents of that directory using the upload-artifact
action.
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
- uses: actions/setup-java@v2
with:
java-version: '11'
distribution: 'adopt'
- name: Validate Gradle wrapper
uses: gradle/wrapper-validation-action@e6e38bacfdf1a337459f332974bb2327a31aaf4b
- name: Build with Gradle
uses: gradle/gradle-build-action@937999e9cc2425eddc7fd62d1053baf041147db7
with:
arguments: build
- uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2
with:
name: Package
path: build/libs