Introduction

This guide shows you how to create a workflow that performs continuous integration (CI) for your Java project using the Ant 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 upload artifacts from a workflow run.

GitHub-hosted runners have a tools cache with pre-installed software, which includes Java Development Kits (JDKs) and Ant. For a list of software and the pre-installed versions for JDK and Ant, seeGitHub-hosted runners.

Prerequisites

You should be familiar with YAML and the syntax for GitHub Actions. For more information, see:

• Workflow syntax for GitHub Actions
• Writing workflows

We recommend that you have a basic understanding of Java and the Ant framework. For more information, see theApache Ant Manual.

Using an Ant workflow template

To get started quickly, add a workflow template to the.github/workflows directory of your repository.

GitHub provides a workflow template for Ant that should work for most Java with Ant projects. The subsequent sections of this guide give examples of how you can customize this workflow template.

1. On GitHub, navigate to the main page of the repository.

2. Under your repository name, click Actions.

   

3. If you already have a workflow in your repository, clickNew workflow.

4. The "Choose a workflow" page shows a selection of recommended workflow templates. Search for "Java with Ant".

5. On the "Java with Ant" workflow, clickConfigure.

6. Edit the workflow as required. For example, change the Java version.

7. ClickCommit changes.

   Theant.yml workflow file is added to the.github/workflows directory of your repository.

Specifying the Java version and architecture

The workflow template sets up thePATH to contain OpenJDK 8 for the x64 platform. If you want to use a different version of Java, or target a different architecture (x64 orx86), you can use thesetup-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 thesetup-java action and configure thejava-version,distribution andarchitecture parameters to'11','temurin' andx64.

steps:  - uses: actions/checkout@v5  - name: Set up JDK 11 for x64    uses: actions/setup-java@v4    with:      java-version: '11'      distribution: 'temurin'      architecture: x64

steps:-uses:actions/checkout@v5-name:SetupJDK11forx64uses:actions/setup-java@v4with:java-version:'11'distribution:'temurin'architecture:x64

For more information, see thesetup-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 default target specified in yourbuild.xml file. Your default target will commonly be set to 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 run a different target, you can specify those. For example, you may want to run thejar target that's configured in yourbuild-ci.xml file.

steps:  - uses: actions/checkout@v5  - uses: actions/setup-java@v4    with:      java-version: '17'      distribution: 'temurin'  - name: Run the Ant jar target    run: ant -noinput -buildfile build-ci.xml jar

steps:-uses:actions/checkout@v5-uses:actions/setup-java@v4with:java-version:'17'distribution:'temurin'-name:RuntheAntjartargetrun:ant-noinput-buildfilebuild-ci.xmljar

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, seeStore and share data with workflow artifacts.

Ant will usually create output files like JARs, EARs, or WARs in thebuild/jar directory. You can upload the contents of that directory using theupload-artifact action.

steps:  - uses: actions/checkout@v5  - uses: actions/setup-java@v4    with:      java-version: '17'      distribution: 'temurin'  - run: ant -noinput -buildfile build.xml  - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4    with:      name: Package      path: build/jar

steps:-uses:actions/checkout@v5-uses:actions/setup-java@v4with:java-version:'17'distribution:'temurin'-run:ant-noinput-buildfilebuild.xml-uses:actions/upload-artifact@v4with:name:Packagepath:build/jar