CI/CD for Spring Boot (Maven) with GitHub Actions

A Spring Boot service with JPA needs integration tests against real Postgres before the jar is packaged and shipped.

This recipe builds a GitHub Actions pipeline for a Maven-based Spring Boot app. It runs mvn verify against a Postgres service, packages the jar, and deploys on main.

What the pipeline does

Set up JDK with Maven cache
mvn verify (compile, test, integration test)
Run against Postgres
Package the jar
Deploy on main

The workflow

setup-java caches the Maven repository so dependency resolution is fast.

.github/workflows/ci.yml

name: CI
on: [push, pull_request]
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    services:
      postgres:
        image: postgres:16
        env:
          POSTGRES_PASSWORD: postgres
          POSTGRES_DB: app_test
        ports: ["5432:5432"]
        options: >-
          --health-cmd "pg_isready -U postgres"
          --health-interval 10s
          --health-timeout 5s
          --health-retries 5
    env:
      SPRING_DATASOURCE_URL: jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/app_test
      SPRING_DATASOURCE_USERNAME: postgres
      SPRING_DATASOURCE_PASSWORD: postgres
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-java@v4
        with:
          distribution: temurin
          java-version: '21'
          cache: maven
      - run: mvn -B verify
  deploy:
    needs: test
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-java@v4
        with:
          distribution: temurin
          java-version: '21'
          cache: maven
      - run: mvn -B package -DskipTests
      - run: ./deploy.sh target/app.jar

Testing against a database

Spring Boot reads SPRING_DATASOURCE_* env vars, so point them at the postgres service at localhost:5432. For @SpringBootTest integration tests you can use the service container directly, or use Testcontainers - Docker is preinstalled on the runner, so Testcontainers works without extra setup. Flyway or Liquibase runs migrations at boot.

Deploying

mvn package produces an executable jar in target/. Deploy it as a container image, copy it to a VPS over SSH and run it under systemd, or push to a PaaS. Externalize secrets via environment variables, not application.properties.

Key takeaways

cache: maven on setup-java caches ~/.m2 for fast resolution.
mvn verify runs unit and integration tests; point the datasource at Postgres.
Testcontainers works on the runner since Docker is preinstalled.