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 "Using 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 the Gradle User Manual.
Using a Gradle workflow template
To get started quickly, add a workflow template to the .github/workflows
directory of your repository.
GitHub provides a workflow template for Gradle that should work for most Java with Gradle projects. The subsequent sections of this guide give examples of how you can customize this workflow template.
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On GitHub.com, navigate to the main page of the repository.
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Under your repository name, click Actions.
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If you already have a workflow in your repository, click New workflow.
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The "Choose a workflow" page shows a selection of recommended workflow templates. Search for "Java with Gradle".
-
On the "Java with Gradle" workflow, click Configure. This workflow performs the following steps:
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Checks out a copy of project's repository.
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Sets up the Java JDK.
-
Sets up the Gradle environment. The
gradle/actions/setup-gradle
action takes care of caching state between workflow runs, and provides a detailed summary of all Gradle executions. -
The "Build with Gradle" step executes the
build
task using the Gradle Wrapper. -
Edit the workflow as required. For example, change the Java version.
Notes:
- This workflow template contains an action that is not certified by GitHub. Actions provided by third parties are governed by separate terms of service, privacy policy, and support documentation.
- If you use actions from third parties you should use a version specified by a commit SHA. If the action is revised and you want to use the newer version, you will need to update the SHA. You can specify a version by referencing a tag or a branch, however the action may change without warning. For more information, see "Security hardening for GitHub Actions."
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Click Commit changes.
The
gradle.yml
workflow file is added to the.github/workflows
directory of your repository.
Specifying the Java version and architecture
The workflow template 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'
, 'temurin'
and x64
.
steps: - uses: actions/checkout@v4 - name: Set up JDK 11 for x64 uses: actions/setup-java@v4 with: java-version: '11' distribution: 'temurin' architecture: x64
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Set up JDK 11 for x64
uses: actions/setup-java@v4
with:
java-version: '11'
distribution: 'temurin'
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 workflow template 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@v4 - uses: actions/setup-java@v4 with: java-version: '17' distribution: 'temurin' - name: Setup Gradle uses: gradle/actions/setup-gradle@af1da67850ed9a4cedd57bfd976089dd991e2582 # v4.0.0 - name: Build with Gradle run: ./gradlew -b ci.gradle package
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: actions/setup-java@v4
with:
java-version: '17'
distribution: 'temurin'
- name: Setup Gradle
uses: gradle/actions/setup-gradle@af1da67850ed9a4cedd57bfd976089dd991e2582 # v4.0.0
- name: Build with Gradle
run: ./gradlew -b ci.gradle package
Caching dependencies
Your build dependencies can be cached to speed up your workflow runs. After a successful run, gradle/actions/setup-gradle
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/actions/setup-gradle
action. For more information, see gradle/actions/setup-gradle
.
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 "Storing and sharing data from a workflow."
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@v4 - uses: actions/setup-java@v4 with: java-version: '17' distribution: 'temurin' - name: Setup Gradle uses: gradle/actions/setup-gradle@af1da67850ed9a4cedd57bfd976089dd991e2582 # v4.0.0 - name: Build with Gradle run: ./gradlew build - name: Upload build artifacts uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4 with: name: Package path: build/libs
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: actions/setup-java@v4
with:
java-version: '17'
distribution: 'temurin'
- name: Setup Gradle
uses: gradle/actions/setup-gradle@af1da67850ed9a4cedd57bfd976089dd991e2582 # v4.0.0
- name: Build with Gradle
run: ./gradlew build
- name: Upload build artifacts
uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
with:
name: Package
path: build/libs