coursier cache action
May 12, 2026 ยท View on GitHub
A GitHub action to save / restore the coursier / sbt / mill / Ammonite caches of your build.
Usage
Add a coursier/cache-action@v7 step to your YAML workflow, like
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v5
- uses: coursier/cache-action@v7
Cached directories
Coursier cache
Always cached.
Add files to take into account in its cache key via extraFiles.
~/.sbt and ~/.ivy2/cache
Cached when sbt files are found (any of *.sbt, project/**.scala, project/**.sbt, project/build.properties).
Add files to take into account in its cache key via extraSbtFiles.
~/.cache/mill
Cached when mill files are found (any of .mill-version, ./mill).
Add files to take into account in its cache key via extraMillFiles.
~/.ammonite
Cached when Ammonite scripts are found (any of *.sc, */*.sc).
Add files to take into account in its cache key via ammoniteScripts.
Parameters
root
Optional Root directory containing build definition sources (build.sbt, build.sc, etc.)
If the sbt or mill build definition files are in a sub-directory, pass the path to this sub-directory here.
path
Optional Override for the path of the coursier cache.
By default, the coursier cache is assumed to be in the default OS-dependent location.
Set this input to override that. Note that this action will also set the COURSIER_CACHE environment variable
if an override is specified, so that you don't have to set it yourself.
extraFiles
Optional Extra files to take into account in the cache key.
By default, sbt build definition files (*.sbt, project/**.{scala,sbt}, project/build.properties) and
mill build definition files (*.sc, ./mill) are hashed to uniquely identify the cached data. Upon
cache restoration, if an exact match is found, the cache is not saved again at the end of the job.
In case of no exact match, it is assumed new files may have been fetched; the previous cache for the
current OS, if any, is restored, but a new cache is persisted with a new key at the end of the job.
To take into account extra files in the cache key, pass via extraFiles either
- a single path as a string
- multiple paths in a JSON array, encoded in a string
Blobs are accepted (processed by @actions/glob).
extraSbtFiles
Optional Extra sbt files to take into account in the sbt cache key. Same format as extraFiles.
extraMillFiles
Optional Extra mill files to take into account in the mill cache key. Same format as extraFiles.
ammoniteScripts
Optional Extra Ammonite scripts to take into account in the Ammonite cache key. Same format as extraFiles.
extraKey
Optional
Extra value to be appended to the coursier cache key.
See extraFiles for more details.
extraHashedContent
Optional
Extra content to take into account in the cache key.
See extraFiles for more details.
The content of extraHashedContent is taken into account in the hash for the coursier cache key.
ignoreJob
Optional
Default: false
Set true if you don't want to use a job id as part of cache key.
ignoreMatrix
Optional
Default: false
Set true if you don't want to use a matrix jobs as part of cache key.
ignoreAmmonite
Optional
Default: false
Set true to skip saving and restoring the Ammonite cache, regardless of whether the repository contains .sc scripts.
disableFallback
Optional
Default: false
Set true to disable falling back to a less specific cache key when there is no exact cache hit. By default, if no exact cache match is found, the action will restore from a more general cache key (e.g. from a different job or build configuration). Disabling this prevents unintended cache sharing across jobs or matrix instances that have different dependency sets.
Cache invalidation
To manually invalidate the cache without changing your build files, set the COURSIER_CACHE_ACTION_CACHE_VERSION
environment variable in your workflow. Changing its value produces a different cache key across all
cache types, so the old cache is ignored and a fresh one is created.
The variable can be set at the workflow level so that it applies to every step:
env:
COURSIER_CACHE_ACTION_CACHE_VERSION: 1 # increment this value to invalidate the cache
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v5
- uses: coursier/cache-action@v7
Or it can be scoped to only the coursier/cache-action step:
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v5
- uses: coursier/cache-action@v7
env:
COURSIER_CACHE_ACTION_CACHE_VERSION: 1 # increment this value to invalidate the cache
This is equivalent to passing the version as extraHashedContent, but more convenient because it
can be set globally for the whole workflow (or even as a repository variable / secret) without
touching the individual step configuration.
Outputs
cache-hit-coursier- A boolean value to indicate a match was found for the coursier cachecache-hit-sbt-ivy2-cache- A boolean value to indicate a match was found for the sbt-ivy2-cache cachecache-hit-mill- A boolean value to indicate a match was found for the mill cachecache-hit-ammonite- A boolean value to indicate a match was found for the ammonite cache
See Skipping steps based on cache-hit for info on using this output
Skipping steps based on cache-hit
Using the cache-hit-... outputs above, subsequent steps can be skipped when a cache hit occurs on a given key.
Example:
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v5
- uses: coursier/cache-action@v7
id: coursier-cache
- name: Fetch Dependencies
if: steps.coursier-cache.outputs.cache-hit-coursier != 'true'
run: sbt +update
Note: The
iddefined incoursier/cache-actionmust match theidin theifstatement (i.e.steps.[ID].outputs.cache-hit-coursier)