CI/CD Workflows

This page documents the five GitHub Actions workflows that automate verification, publishing, and deployment for the patternfly-java project. Each workflow corresponds to a file under .github/workflows/. This page covers their triggers, jobs, dependencies, and the secrets they require.

For the Maven build steps these workflows invoke (lifecycle phases, profiles, plugins), see the Build Pipeline page (2.3). For the release versioning conventions and Maven Central publication sequence, see the Release Process page (2.5).

Workflow Summary

Workflow: Verify Codebase

File: .github/workflows/verify.yml

Trigger: Every push to main and every pull request targeting main.

Jobs:

The verify job installs the BOM module first (so downstream modules can resolve managed versions) before running the full verify lifecycle on the root project. No deployment credentials are used here.

Diagram: Verify Workflow

Sources: .github/workflows/verify.yml1-25

Workflow: Publish Snapshot

File: .github/workflows/snapshot.yml

Trigger: workflow_run — fires automatically when the Verify Codebase workflow completes (on any result).

Jobs:

The BOM must be deployed first so that the root module's managed dependency resolution can find the freshly deployed BOM snapshot when its own deploy runs.

Required secrets: CENTRAL_USERNAME, CENTRAL_PASSWORD

Note: Snapshots are deployed without GPG signing (no release profile). Tests are skipped (-DskipTests) since the Verify workflow already ran them.

Diagram: Snapshot Workflow

Sources: .github/workflows/snapshot.yml1-50

Workflow: Release PatternFly Java

File: .github/workflows/release.yml

Trigger: Push of any tag matching v* (e.g., v0.9.0).

Permissions: contents: write (required for creating GitHub releases).

This is the most complex workflow, containing five jobs with explicit dependency ordering.

Jobs

deploy-bom

.github/workflows/release.yml12-40

Runs mvnw package inside bom/, then reconfigures setup-java with Maven Central credentials and GPG key, then runs mvnw deploy -P release inside bom/. The double setup-java call is intentional: the first call populates the Maven cache; the second overwrites settings.xml with the server and GPG configuration needed for Central publication.

deploy-patternfly

.github/workflows/release.yml42-69

Same double setup-java pattern as deploy-bom, but runs from the root project directory, deploying all modules except the BOM. This job waits for deploy-bom to finish so the signed BOM is already available on Maven Central when the root POM references it.

publish-apidocs

.github/workflows/release.yml71-104

Steps:

1. Install Graphviz (for dependency graph diagrams via depgraph:aggregate)
2. Install BOM and root modules with -Dquickly (skips tests and slow steps)
3. Run depgraph:aggregate from root
4. Inside the apidoc/ directory, run four Maven commands:
   • maven-antrun-plugin:run@copy-doc-files
   • maven-antrun-plugin:run@copy-sources
   • maven-antrun-plugin:run@copy-demos
   • javadoc:javadoc
5. Deploy ./apidoc/target/reports/apidocs to the gh-pages branch of patternfly-java/apidocs using JamesIves/github-pages-deploy-action

Required secret: PUBLISH_CONTENT (a PAT with write access to the target repository)

publish-showcase

.github/workflows/release.yml106-130

Runs mvnw --projects org.patternfly:patternfly-java-showcase --also-make -P showcase,prod package, then deploys ./showcase/target/showcase to the gh-pages branch of patternfly-java/patternfly-java.github.io.

release

.github/workflows/release.yml132-156

Uses three third-party actions:

• battila7/get-version-action — extracts the version string from the tag (e.g., v0.9.0 → 0.9.0)
• mindsers/changelog-reader-action — reads the section for that version from CHANGELOG.md
• softprops/action-gh-release — creates a GitHub release with the changelog excerpt as body, marked as a non-draft, non-prerelease, and linked to an announcements discussion category

Required secrets: CENTRAL_USERNAME, CENTRAL_PASSWORD, MAVEN_GPG_PRIVATE_KEY, MAVEN_GPG_PASSPHRASE, PUBLISH_CONTENT, GITHUB_TOKEN (built-in)

Diagram: Release Workflow Job Dependency Graph

Sources: .github/workflows/release.yml1-156

Workflow: Publish API Documentation (Manual)

File: .github/workflows/apidocs.yml

Trigger: workflow_dispatch — triggered manually from the GitHub Actions UI.

Permissions: contents: write

This workflow contains a single job, publish-apidocs, which is structurally identical to the publish-apidocs job in release.yml. It exists so maintainers can republish Javadoc independently of a full release — for example, after fixing documentation comments without bumping the version.

Steps mirror those in the release workflow: install BOM → install -Dquickly → depgraph:aggregate → antrun copy steps → javadoc:javadoc in apidoc/ → deploy to patternfly-java/apidocs.

Required secret: PUBLISH_CONTENT

Sources: .github/workflows/apidocs.yml1-44

Workflow: Publish Showcase (Manual)

File: .github/workflows/showcase.yml

Trigger: workflow_dispatch — triggered manually from the GitHub Actions UI.

Permissions: contents: write

Single job, publish-showcase. Unlike the release version, this standalone workflow installs the BOM first (mvnw install in bom/) before building the showcase. This is necessary because, in the manual case, no prior deploy has put the BOM into Maven Central; it must be installed into the local Maven repository so the showcase build can resolve it.

Steps:

1. mvnw install in bom/
2. mvnw --projects org.patternfly:patternfly-java-showcase --also-make -P showcase,prod package
3. Deploy ./showcase/target/showcase → patternfly-java/patternfly-java.github.io on gh-pages

Required secret: PUBLISH_CONTENT

Sources: .github/workflows/showcase.yml1-36

Secrets Reference

Overall Workflow Trigger Map

Diagram: Trigger Sources and Resulting Workflow Chains

Sources: .github/workflows/verify.yml1-7 .github/workflows/snapshot.yml1-7 .github/workflows/release.yml1-6 .github/workflows/apidocs.yml1-7 .github/workflows/showcase.yml1-7