Github-actions: cache repo to speed up maven builds

Question

Maven dependencies are downloaded every time my build workflow is triggered.

Travis CI provides a way to cache maven repository. Does Github actions provider similar functionality that allows to cache maven repository?

Answer 1

For completeness, this is an example of how to cache the local Maven repository on subsequent builds:

steps:
  # Typical Java workflow steps
  - uses: actions/checkout@v1
  - name: Set up JDK 11
    uses: actions/setup-java@v1
    with:
      java-version: 11
  # Step that does that actual cache save and restore
  - uses: actions/cache@v1
    with:
      path: ~/.m2/repository
      key: ${{ runner.os }}-maven-${{ hashFiles('**/pom.xml') }}
      restore-keys: |
        ${{ runner.os }}-maven-
  # Step that runs the tests
  - name: Run tests
    run: mvn test

See this page for more details.

Answer 2

Apparently as of 10 September 2019 caching of build dependencies is not present in Github Actions. Github staff have acknowledged that this feature is necessary, and have replied that "We're working on caching packages and artifacts between workflow executions, we'll have it by mid-November [2019]."

Source: https://github.community/t5/GitHub-Actions/Caching-files-between-GitHub-Action-executions/m-p/30974/highlight/true#M630