Flatpak GitHub Actions

Build and deploy your Flatpak application using GitHub Actions

How to use

Building stage

Add a new workflow by creating a .yml file under .github/workflows with this content

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
name: CI
jobs:
  flatpak:
    name: "Flatpak"
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    container:
      image: bilelmoussaoui/flatpak-github-actions:gnome-44
      options: --privileged
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - uses: flatpak/flatpak-github-actions/flatpak-builder@v6
      with:
        bundle: palette.flatpak
        manifest-path: org.gnome.zbrown.Palette.yml
        cache-key: flatpak-builder-${{ github.sha }}

Inputs

Building for multiple CPU architectures

To build for CPU architectures other than x86_64, the GitHub Actions workflow has to either natively be running on that architecture (e.g. on an aarch64 self-hosted GitHub Actions runner), or the container used must be configured to emulate the requested architecture (e.g. with QEMU).

For example, to build a Flatpak for both x86_64 and aarch64 using emulation, use the following workflow as a guide:

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
name: CI
jobs:
  flatpak:
    name: "Flatpak"
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    container:
      image: bilelmoussaoui/flatpak-github-actions:gnome-44
      options: --privileged
    strategy:
      matrix:
        arch: [x86_64, aarch64]
      # Don't fail the whole workflow if one architecture fails
      fail-fast: false
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    # Docker is required by the docker/setup-qemu-action which enables emulation
    - name: Install deps
      if: ${{ matrix.arch != 'x86_64' }}
      run: |
        dnf -y install docker
    - name: Set up QEMU
      if: ${{ matrix.arch != 'x86_64' }}
      id: qemu
      uses: docker/setup-qemu-action@v2
      with:
        platforms: arm64
    - uses: flatpak/flatpak-github-actions/flatpak-builder@v6
      with:
        bundle: palette.flatpak
        manifest-path: org.gnome.zbrown.Palette.yml
        cache-key: flatpak-builder-${{ github.sha }}
        arch: ${{ matrix.arch }}

Building for Automated Tests

As described in the Inputs documentation, specifying run-tests: true will amend the Flatpak manifest to enable Network and X11 access automatically. Any other changes to the manifest must be made manually, such as building the tests (e.g. -Dtests=true) or any other options (e.g. --buildtype=debugoptimized).

Most developers will want to run tests on pull requests, before merging into the main branch of a repository. To ensure your manifest is building the correct code, you should set the sources entry for your project to "type": "dir" with the path key relative to the manifest's location in the repository.

In the example below, the manifest is located at /build-aux/flatpak/org.gnome.zbrown.Palette.json, so the path key is set to ../../. If the manifest were in the project root instead, the correct usage would be "path": "./".

{
    "app-id" : "org.gnome.zbrown.Palette",
    "runtime" : "org.gnome.Platform",
    "runtime-version" : "master",
    "sdk" : "org.gnome.Sdk",
    "command" : "org.gnome.zbrown.Palette",
    "finish-args" : [
        "--share=ipc",
        "--device=dri",
        "--socket=fallback-x11",
        "--socket=wayland"
    ],
    "modules" : [
        {
            "name" : "palette",
            "buildsystem" : "meson",
            "config-opts" : [
                "--prefix=/app",
                "--buildtype=debugoptimized",
                "-Dtests=true"
            ],
            "sources" : [
                {
                    "name" : "palette",
                    "buildsystem" : "meson",
                    "type" : "dir",
                    "path" : "../../"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Deployment stage

If you want to deploy the successfully built Flatpak application to a remote repository

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
name: Deploy
jobs:
  flatpak:
    name: "Flatpak"
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    container:
      image: bilelmoussaoui/flatpak-github-actions:gnome-44
      options: --privileged
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - uses: flatpak/flatpak-github-actions/flatpak-builder@v6
      name: "Build"
      with:
        bundle: palette.flatpak
        manifest-path: org.gnome.zbrown.Palette.yml
        cache-key: flatpak-builder-${{ github.sha }}
    - uses: flatpak/flatpak-github-actions/flat-manager@v6
      name: "Deploy"
      with:
        repository: elementary
        flat-manager-url: https://flatpak-api.elementary.io
        token: some_very_hidden_token
        end-of-life: "The application has been renamed to..."
        end-of-life-rebase: "org.zbrown.Palette"

Inputs

Docker Image

The Docker image used for the action consists of 2 parts: The base image, based on Fedora and which can be found here, and the specific image of the runtime you choose, which is generated through this GitHub Actions workflow.

You can specify the specific runtime you need to use through the image tags: