Setup Scala GitHub Action

A GitHub Action to install Java via Jabba and sbt.

• Configurable Java version: supports OpenJDK, GraalVM, Zulu and any other Java version that's installable via Jabba.
• Cross-platform: works on Linux, macOS, Windows.
• The sbt command is provided, with the official sbt launch script.
• The following alternate sbt launch scripts are also provided:
  • sbtx runs the sbt-extras launcher.
  • csbt runs the Coursier-based sbt-extras launcher.

Usage:

In your GitHub Actions workflow, add a uses: declaration before calling the sbt command.

+++ .github/workflows/ci.yml
  name: CI
  on:
    push:
  jobs:
    build:
      runs-on: ubuntu-latest
      steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v7
+     - uses: step-security/setup-scala@v14
      - name: Compile
        run: sbt compile

The default Java version is the latest OpenJDK 8 HotSpot version via AdoptOpenJDK. To customize the Java version add a with: declaration. For example, to use the latest AdoptOpenJDK 11 version

+++ .github/workflows/ci.yml
  name: CI
  on:
    push:
  jobs:
    build:
      runs-on: ubuntu-latest
      steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v7
      - uses: step-security/setup-scala@v14
+       with:
+         java-version: adopt@1.11
      - name: Compile
        run: sbt compile

More Java version examples:

• graalvm@: the latest GraalVM
• openjdk@1.14: the latest OpenJDK 14 version
• zulu@1.11: the latest Zulu OpenJDK 11
• graalvm@20.2.0=tgz+https://github.com/graalvm/graalvm-ce-builds/releases/download/vm-20.2.0/graalvm-ce-java11-linux-amd64-20.2.0.tar.gz: custom Java version from a URL

Tips and tricks

Some suggestions that may be helpful when using GitHub Actions.

Disable fail-fast strategy

By default, GitHub Actions stops running jobs on the first failure. Add the following configuration to ensure that all jobs run on every PR even if one job fails.

+++ .github/workflows/ci.yml
  name: CI
  on: [push]
  jobs:
    build:
      runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+     strategy:
+       fail-fast: false
      steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v7
      - uses: step-security/setup-scala@v14
      - name: Compile
        run: sbt compile

Configuring Windows jobs

When running jobs on Windows, you may want to default to the bash shell and configure git to disable Windows line feeds.

+++ .github/workflows/ci.yml
  name: CI
  on: [push]
  jobs:
    build:
-     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+     runs-on: windows-latest
      steps:
+     - name: Configure git
+       run: "git config --global core.autocrlf false"
+       shell: bash
      - uses: actions/checkout@v7
      - uses: step-security/setup-scala@v14
      - name: Compile
+       shell: bash
        run: sbt compile

Faster checkout of big repos

Your repository can have a lot of commits, or branches with bulk resources. actions/checkout@v7 doesn't fetch a whole repo by default that can speed up builds greatly. But an additional configuration can be required to fetch tags up to some level of depth for some builds which check binary compatibility with previous tagged release from the branch.

+++ .github/workflows/ci.yml
  name: CI
  on: [push]
  jobs:
    build:
      runs-on: ubuntu-latest
      steps:
-     - uses: actions/checkout@v1
+     - uses: actions/checkout@v7
+       with:
+         fetch-depth: 100
+         fetch-tags: true
      - uses: step-security/setup-scala@v11
      - name: Compile
        run: sbt compile