# GitHub Actions for Gradle v6: What's Changing and Why

DevFeed: [GitHub Actions for Gradle v6: What's Changing and Why](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/github-actions-for-gradle-v6-what-s-changing-and-why-24620.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://blog.gradle.org/github-actions-for-gradle-v6>)

Author: Gradle Build Tool

Published: 2026-03-24T04:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [The Gradle Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/the-gradle-blog.md>)

Topics: [GitHub Actions](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/github-actions.md>), [Gradle](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/gradle.md>), [Caching](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/caching.md>), [ci](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ci.md>), [Open Source](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/open-source.md>)

Tags: [blog-post](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/blog-post.md>), [cache](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cache.md>), [caching](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/caching.md>), [ci](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ci.md>), [configuration](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/configuration.md>), [github-actions](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/github-actions.md>), [gradle](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/gradle.md>), [open-source](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/open-source.md>)

## AI overview

This article announces v6 of GitHub Actions for Gradle builds. The Gradle User Home caching functionality has been extracted from setup-gradle into the closed-source gradle-actions-caching library, while the rest of the action remains open source and workflows continue to function without new functional restrictions. v6 also removes experimental Configuration Cache support, which is being reworked for broader project compatibility.

## Source excerpt

UPDATE: We published a follow-up to this post -- Choice, Clarity, and the Future of Caching in Gradle Actions Today, we're releasing v6 of GitHub Actions for Gradle builds, with an important change to how the caching component is licensed. In this blog post, we explain what's changing, what it means for you, and where we're headed. GitHub Actions for Gradle builds is a collection of GitHub Actions that makes it easy to configure and run Gradle builds on GitHub Actions CI. The centerpiece is setup-gradle, which provides a convenient way to invoke Gradle in GitHub Actions workflows with sophisticated, efficient caching across invocations, GitHub Dependency Graph support, automatic capture of Build Scan® links, and more. It's used by over 45,000 open source repositories and is featured in GitHub's official starter workflows. Since its introduction, GitHub Actions for Gradle builds, including the caching implementation in setup-gradle, have been fully open source under the MIT license. That changes with v6. What's changing Starting with v6, the functionality of setup-gradle that saves and restores Gradle User Home state has been extracted to gradle-actions-caching, a closed-source library distributed under our Terms of Use. The rest of the action remains open source. While the caching functionality of setup-gradle is now under a proprietary license, we are not introducing any functional restrictions in this release. Your workflows will continue to function as before. The only functional change in v6 is the removal of the experimental Configuration Cache support. It was not production-ready and worked only for a limited set of projects. We're reworking this feature so that it works for most projects and more users can benefit (more on this below). To upgrade, simply update your workflow files to reference v6: - uses: gradle/actions/setup-gradle@v6 By upgrading to v6, you accept the Terms of Use for the gradle-actions-caching component. Why we're making this change Support