Skip to main content
Using BuildBuddy with Github Actions is an easy way to get started using BuildBuddy with a CI system. For an even easier way to get started, see the BuildBuddy Workflows Setup Guide.

Setup instructions

There are three steps:
1

Create a workflow file

Set up your GitHub Actions workflow configuration
2

Update your .bazelrc

Add BuildBuddy configuration to your Bazel settings
3

Set up GitHub Secret

Store your BuildBuddy API key securely in GitHub

Workflow file

All you have to do is create a file .github/workflows/main.yaml
.github/workflows/main.yaml
name: CI

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v3

      - name: Install bazelisk
        run: |
          curl -LO "https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazelisk/releases/download/v1.1.0/bazelisk-linux-amd64"
          mkdir -p "${GITHUB_WORKSPACE}/bin/"
          mv bazelisk-linux-amd64 "${GITHUB_WORKSPACE}/bin/bazel"
          chmod +x "${GITHUB_WORKSPACE}/bin/bazel"
      - name: Build
        run: |
          "${GITHUB_WORKSPACE}/bin/bazel" build \
              --config=ci \
              --remote_header=x-buildbuddy-api-key=${{ secrets.BUILDBUDDY_ORG_API_KEY }} \
              //...
      - name: Test
        run: |
          "${GITHUB_WORKSPACE}/bin/bazel" test \
              --config=ci \
              --remote_header=x-buildbuddy-api-key=${{ secrets.BUILDBUDDY_ORG_API_KEY }} \
              //...

Updating your .bazelrc

You’ll then need to add the following configuration to your .bazelrc
.bazelrc
build:ci --build_metadata=ROLE=CI
build:ci --bes_results_url=https://app.buildbuddy.io/invocation/
build:ci --bes_backend=grpcs://remote.buildbuddy.io

Github secrets

Finally, you’ll need to create a GitHub Secret containing your BuildBuddy API Key.
1

Get your API key

Log in to your BuildBuddy account and visit your Quickstart page to get your BuildBuddy API key.
2

Add secret to GitHub

Add your BuildBuddy API Key as GitHub Secret named BUILDBUDDY_ORG_API_KEY. For more information on setting up Github Secrets, click here.

More

Github commit statuses

If you’d like BuildBuddy to publish commit statuses to your repo, you can do so by logging in and clicking Link Github Account in the user menu in the top right.

Visibility

By default, authenticated builds are only visible to members of your BuildBuddy organization. If you’d like your BuildBuddy results pages to be visible to members outside of your organization, you can add the following line to your .bazelrc:
.bazelrc
build:ci --build_metadata=VISIBILITY=PUBLIC

Remote build execution

If you’d like to use BuildBuddy’s Remote Build Execution capabilities in your CI workflow, you can add the following lines to your .bazelrc:
.bazelrc
build:remote --remote_cache=grpcs://remote.buildbuddy.io
build:remote --remote_executor=grpcs://remote.buildbuddy.io
build:remote --remote_upload_local_results
build:remote --host_platform=@buildbuddy_toolchain//:platform
build:remote --platforms=@buildbuddy_toolchain//:platform
build:remote --crosstool_top=@buildbuddy_toolchain//:toolchain
build:remote --jobs=100

build:ci --config=remote
And the following lines to your WORKSPACE file:
WORKSPACE
http_archive(
    name = "io_buildbuddy_buildbuddy_toolchain",
    integrity = "sha256-5zVDos35dx9w9zmrcenyTg8tKwSg1/nUAZPLK8mo5KI=",
    urls = ["https://github.com/buildbuddy-io/buildbuddy-toolchain/releases/download/v0.0.3/buildbuddy-toolchain-v0.0.3.tar.gz"],
)

load("@io_buildbuddy_buildbuddy_toolchain//:deps.bzl", "buildbuddy_deps")

buildbuddy_deps()

load("@io_buildbuddy_buildbuddy_toolchain//:rules.bzl", "buildbuddy")

buildbuddy(name = "buildbuddy_toolchain")
If you’re using Java, or have a complex project - you’ll likely need to configure the toolchain flags a bit. For more information, see our Remote Build Execution guide.

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love