Building and testing Swift

Introduction

This guide shows you how to build and test a Swift package.

GitHub-hosted runners have a tools cache with preinstalled software, and the Ubuntu and macOS runners include the dependencies for building Swift packages. For a full list of up-to-date software and the preinstalled versions of Swift and Xcode, see "About GitHub-hosted runners."

Prerequisites

You should already be familiar with YAML syntax and how it's used with GitHub Actions. For more information, see "Workflow syntax for GitHub Actions."

We recommend that you have a basic understanding of Swift packages. For more information, see "Swift Packages" in the Apple developer documentation.

Using the Swift starter workflow

GitHub provides a Swift starter workflow that should work for most Swift projects, and this guide includes examples that show you how to customize this starter workflow. For more information, see the Swift starter workflow.

To get started quickly, add the starter workflow to the .github/workflows directory of your repository.

name: Swift

on: [push]

jobs:
  build:

    runs-on: macos-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Build
        run: swift build
      - name: Run tests
        run: swift test

Specifying a Swift version

To use a specific preinstalled version of Swift on a GitHub-hosted runner, use the fwal/setup-swift action. This action finds a specific version of Swift from the tools cache on the runner and adds the necessary binaries to PATH. These changes will persist for the remainder of a job. For more information, see the fwal/setup-swift action.

If you are using a self-hosted runner, you must install your desired Swift versions and add them to PATH.

The examples below demonstrate using the fwal/setup-swift action.

Using multiple Swift versions

You can configure your job to use a multiple versions of Swift in a build matrix.

# This workflow uses actions that are not certified by GitHub.
# They are provided by a third-party and are governed by
# separate terms of service, privacy policy, and support
# documentation.

name: Swift

on: [push]

jobs:
  build:
    name: Swift ${{ matrix.swift }} on ${{ matrix.os }}
    strategy:
      matrix:
        os: [ubuntu-latest, macos-latest]
        swift: ["5.2", "5.3"]
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
    steps:
      - uses: fwal/setup-swift@2040b795e5c453c3a05fcb8316496afc8a74f192
        with:
          swift-version: ${{ matrix.swift }}
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Build
        run: swift build
      - name: Run tests
        run: swift test

Using a single specific Swift version

You can configure your job to use a single specific version of Swift, such as 5.3.3.

steps:
  - uses: fwal/setup-swift@2040b795e5c453c3a05fcb8316496afc8a74f192
    with:
      swift-version: "5.3.3"
  - name: Get swift version
    run: swift --version # Swift 5.3.3

Building and testing your code

You can use the same commands that you use locally to build and test your code using Swift. This example demonstrates how to use swift build and swift test in a job:

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v2
  - uses: fwal/setup-swift@2040b795e5c453c3a05fcb8316496afc8a74f192
    with:
      swift-version: "5.3.3"
  - name: Build
    run: swift build
  - name: Run tests
    run: swift test