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 Maven software project management tool. 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 upload artifacts from a workflow run.
GitHub-hosted runners have a tools cache with pre-installed software, which includes Java Development Kits (JDKs) and Maven. For a list of software and the pre-installed versions for JDK and Maven, 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 Maven framework. For more information, see the Maven Getting Started Guide in the Maven 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 Maven starter workflow
GitHub provides a Maven starter workflow that will work for most Maven-based Java projects. For more information, see the Maven starter workflow.
To get started quickly, you can choose the preconfigured Maven 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.
name: Java CI
on: [push]
jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
- name: Set up JDK 17
uses: actions/setup-java@v2
with:
java-version: '17'
distribution: 'temurin'
- name: Build with Maven
run: mvn --batch-mode --update-snapshots package
This workflow performs the following steps:
- The
checkout
step downloads a copy of your repository on the runner. - The
setup-java
step configures the Eclipse Temurin (Java) 17 JDK by Eclipse Adoptium. - The "Build with Maven" step runs the Maven
package
target in non-interactive mode to ensure that your code builds, tests pass, and a package can be created.
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 package
target by default. In the default Maven 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 target, you can specify those. For example, you may want to run the verify
target that's configured in a pom-ci.xml file.
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v2
- uses: actions/setup-java@v2
with:
java-version: '17'
distribution: 'temurin'
- name: Run the Maven verify phase
run: mvn --batch-mode --update-snapshots verify
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."
Maven will usually create output files like JARs, EARs, or WARs in the target
directory. To upload those as artifacts, you can copy them into a new directory that contains artifacts to upload. For example, you can create a directory called staging
. Then 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: '17'
distribution: 'temurin'
- run: mvn --batch-mode --update-snapshots verify
- run: mkdir staging && cp target/*.jar staging
- uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2
with:
name: Package
path: staging