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GitHub Actions

Run your Selenium Boot tests on every push and pull request. The workflow below installs Chrome, runs the suite, and uploads the HTML report as a downloadable artifact.

Basic workflow​

.github/workflows/test.yml
name: Selenium Tests

on:
  push:
    branches: [main, master]
  pull_request:

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

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

      - name: Install Chrome
        uses: browser-actions/setup-chrome@v1

      - name: Run tests
        run: mvn test -B

      - name: Upload HTML report
        if: always()
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: selenium-boot-report
          path: target/selenium-boot-report.html

What Selenium Boot configures on CI​

When it detects a CI environment (GitHub Actions, Jenkins, CircleCI and others), Selenium Boot adjusts itself — no YAML changes needed:

  • browser.headless is forced to true.
  • execution.threadCount is derived from the available CPU cores, capped at execution.maxActiveSessions — only when you left it at the default of 1 and parallel is not none.
  • Inside Docker or Kubernetes, Chrome and Firefox get the container flags they need (for Chrome: --no-sandbox, --disable-dev-shm-usage, --disable-gpu, --window-size=1920,1080).
  • JUnit XML is written to target/surefire-reports/TEST-SeleniumBoot.xml on every run.
  • When running in GitHub Actions and tracing.enabled: true is on, failed tests are summarized in a Markdown table (test name, error, and path to target/traces/...) appended to $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY so failures are visible without opening artifacts.

Each override is printed to the console as [Selenium Boot] CI override: ….

When tracing.enabled: true is enabled in selenium-boot.yml and tests fail, Selenium Boot automatically appends a Markdown table to $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY:

TestErrorTrace
com.example.LoginTest#testInvalidLoginExpected [Dashboard] but found [401 Unauthorized]target/traces/LoginTest/testInvalidLogin-trace.html

This lists every failing test, its error message, and the path to its trace file directly in the GitHub Actions run summary page. If no tests fail or outside GitHub Actions, nothing is written.

Publish JUnit XML test results​

      - name: Publish test results
        uses: dorny/test-reporter@v1
        if: always()
        with:
          name: Test Results
          path: '**/surefire-reports/TEST-*.xml'
          reporter: java-junit
          fail-on-empty: false

This renders pass/fail counts directly in the GitHub Actions summary and PR checks.

Matrix — multiple browsers​

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      matrix:
        browser: [chrome, firefox]

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

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

      - name: Install Chrome
        if: matrix.browser == 'chrome'
        uses: browser-actions/setup-chrome@v1

      - name: Install Firefox
        if: matrix.browser == 'firefox'
        uses: browser-actions/setup-firefox@v1

      - name: Run tests
        run: mvn test -B -Dbrowser.type=${{ matrix.browser }}

      - name: Upload report
        if: always()
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: report-${{ matrix.browser }}
          path: target/selenium-boot-report.html

Caching Maven dependencies​

The cache: maven option in setup-java caches ~/.m2/repository automatically. This significantly reduces build time on subsequent runs.

Full example with parallel tests​

      - name: Run tests
        run: mvn test -B -Dparallel=methods -DthreadCount=4

Or define parallel settings in selenium-boot.yml and commit it — the CI runner picks them up automatically.