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brunoborges merged 5 commits into from
Jun 23, 2026
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docs: note jdkfile approach for Early Access / unreleased JDK builds #1058

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docs: note jdkfile approach for Early Access / unreleased JDK builds
brunoborges Jun 23, 2026
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Merge branch 'main' into docs/jdkfile-early-access
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Merge branch 'main' into docs/jdkfile-early-access
brunoborges Jun 23, 2026
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20 changes: 20 additions & 0 deletions docs/advanced-usage.md
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Expand Up @@ -286,6 +286,9 @@ steps:
## Installing Java from local file
If your use-case requires a custom distribution or a version that is not provided by setup-java, you can download it manually and setup-java will take care of the installation and caching on the VM:

> [!NOTE]
> This approach also lets you use builds that setup-java does not provide directly, such as **Early Access (EA)** or other unreleased JDK builds (for example, an upcoming feature release or a Loom/Valhalla preview build). Download the desired archive in a prior step and point `jdkFile` at it; setup-java will extract, install, and cache it just like a supported distribution. When targeting multiple architectures, select the correct binary per architecture in your workflow (for example, with a build matrix).

```yaml
steps:
- run: |
Expand All @@ -301,6 +304,23 @@ steps:
- run: java --version
```

For example, to use an **Early Access** build from [jdk.java.net](https://jdk.java.net/), download the archive for your runner OS/architecture and install it via `distribution: 'jdkfile'` (example below assumes Linux x64):

```yaml
steps:
- run: |
download_url="https://download.java.net/java/early_access/jdk25/36/GPL/openjdk-25-ea+36_linux-x64_bin.tar.gz"
wget -O $RUNNER_TEMP/java_package.tar.gz $download_url
- uses: actions/setup-java@v5
with:
distribution: 'jdkfile'
jdkFile: ${{ runner.temp }}/java_package.tar.gz
java-version: '25.0.0-ea.36'
architecture: x64

- run: java --version
```

If your use-case requires a custom distribution (in the example, alpine-linux is used) or a version that is not provided by setup-java and you want to always install the latest version during runtime, then you can use the following code to auto-download the latest JDK, determine the semver needed for setup-java, and setup-java will take care of the installation and caching on the VM:

```yaml
Expand Down