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Build and Deploy Spring Boot with GitHub Actions

This tutorial shows a GitHub Actions workflow that builds a Spring Boot application, packages the Elastic Beanstalk bundle, uploads it to S3, and deploys it with the EB CLI. The pipeline keeps build and deployment steps reproducible and versioned.

Prerequisites

  • Spring Boot project stored in GitHub.
  • Elastic Beanstalk application and environment already created.
  • GitHub repository secrets for AWS credentials, region, application name, and environment name.
  • IAM permissions for S3 and Elastic Beanstalk deployment operations.

What You'll Build

You will build a pipeline that:

  • Checks out code and sets up Corretto 17.
  • Runs Maven tests and packaging.
  • Produces an application bundle for Elastic Beanstalk.
  • Deploys the new application version to an existing environment.
flowchart LR
    A[Git Push] --> B[GitHub Actions]
    B --> C[Set up Corretto 17]
    C --> D[mvn test plus package]
    D --> E[Bundle Procfile plus target JAR]
    E --> F[Deploy with EB CLI]
    F --> G[Elastic Beanstalk Environment]

Steps

  1. Store required GitHub repository secrets:

  2. AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID

  3. AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
  4. AWS_REGION
  5. EB_APPLICATION_NAME

  6. EB_ENVIRONMENT_NAME

  7. Create .github/workflows/java-eb-deploy.yml.

name: Deploy Java to Elastic Beanstalk

on:
    push:
        branches:
            - main

jobs:
    deploy:
        runs-on: ubuntu-latest
        steps:
            - name: Check out repository
              uses: actions/checkout@v4

            - name: Set up Corretto 17
              uses: actions/setup-java@v4
              with:
                  distribution: corretto
                  java-version: '17'
                  cache: maven

            - name: Install EB CLI
              run: pip install awsebcli

            - name: Configure AWS credentials
              uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v4
              with:
                  aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
                  aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
                  aws-region: ${{ secrets.AWS_REGION }}

            - name: Build application
              run: mvn --batch-mode clean verify package

            - name: Deploy to Elastic Beanstalk
              run: |
                  eb init ${{ secrets.EB_APPLICATION_NAME }} --platform "Corretto 17 running on 64bit Amazon Linux 2023" --region ${{ secrets.AWS_REGION }}
                  eb use ${{ secrets.EB_ENVIRONMENT_NAME }}
                  eb deploy ${{ secrets.EB_ENVIRONMENT_NAME }} --staged

  1. Keep Procfile and .ebextensions/ in the repository root of the application bundle.

  2. Protect main with pull request review and required status checks.

  3. Add a smoke test job if you want post-deploy verification.

curl --fail --silent "http://$CNAME/health"

Verification

Use these checks after the workflow runs:

eb status "$ENV_NAME"
eb events "$ENV_NAME"
aws elasticbeanstalk describe-events --application-name "$APP_NAME" --environment-name "$ENV_NAME" --max-items 10 --region "$REGION"

Expected outcomes:

  • GitHub Actions completes the Maven build successfully.
  • Elastic Beanstalk receives a new application version.
  • The target environment deploys without manual workstation steps.
  • /health remains reachable after deployment.

See Also

Sources