By following the instructions on this page, you should be able to generate a SCIP index of your Java codebase using Gradle, Maven, sbt, or Bazel. See Supported build tools for an overview of other build tools that we're planning to support in the future.

The most common way to use scip-java is to run it from CI to upload SCIP indexes after merging a pull request.

The easiest way to install scip-java is to use the Docker image.

Use the sourcegraph/scip-java Docker image to run scip-java.

$ docker run -v $(pwd):/sources --env JVM_VERSION=17 sourcegraph/scip-java:latest scip-java index
$ src code-intel upload # (optional) upload index to Sourcegraph

If everything went OK, a index.scip file should exist after the command has finished indexing the project.

The sourcegraph/scip-java Docker image is made available for convenience at the cost of performance. The sourcegraph/scip-java image is a big download because it includes pre-installed versions of Java 8, Java 11, and Java 17. The sourcegraph/scip-java image has slow performance because it needs to download all external dependencies of your codebase on every invocation.

For better performance, we recommend using your own Docker image together with the Java launcher option.

Java 17 is the default Java version in the sourcegraph/scip-java Docker image. Use the following commands to use a different JVM version:

# Java 8
docker run -v $(pwd):/sources --env JVM_VERSION=8 sourcegraph/scip-java:latest scip-java index

# Java 11
docker run -v $(pwd):/sources --env JVM_VERSION=11 sourcegraph/scip-java:latest scip-java index

# Java 17 (default)
docker run -v $(pwd):/sources --env JVM_VERSION=17 sourcegraph/scip-java:latest scip-java index

# Java 21
docker run -v $(pwd):/sources --env JVM_VERSION=21 sourcegraph/scip-java:latest scip-java index

Use the Java launcher to install scip-java on your local computer or any Docker image with a pre-installed Java version.

# macOS/Linux
curl -fLo coursier https://git.io/coursier-cli \
  && chmod +x coursier \
  && ./coursier launch com.sourcegraph:scip-java_2.13:@STABLE_VERSION@ -- --help

# Windows
bitsadmin /transfer downloadCoursierCli https://git.io/coursier-cli "%cd%\coursier"
bitsadmin /transfer downloadCoursierBat https://git.io/coursier-bat "%cd%\coursier.bat"
./coursier launch com.sourcegraph:scip-java_2.13:@STABLE_VERSION@ -- --help

# macOS Homebrew
brew install coursier/formulas/coursier \
 && coursier launch com.sourcegraph:scip-java_2.13:@STABLE_VERSION@ -- --help

The Java launcher uses Coursier to download scip-java artifacts from Maven Central and build an executable scip-java binary. The jar files for scip-java are downloaded the first time you run the launch command, and they are cached for subsequent runs.

Additional command-line flags can be passed to scip-java after the -- argument. For example, replace --help with index in the command above to run the index subcommand.

Use the fat jar option to build a standalone scip-java executable. Note that you still need a Java installation to run the scip-java binary.

# macOS/Linux
curl -fLo coursier https://git.io/coursier-cli \
  && chmod +x coursier \
  && ./coursier bootstrap --standalone -o scip-java com.sourcegraph:scip-java_2.13:@STABLE_VERSION@ --main com.sourcegraph.scip_java.ScipJava
./scip-java --help

# Windows
bitsadmin /transfer downloadCoursierCli https://git.io/coursier-cli "%cd%\coursier"
bitsadmin /transfer downloadCoursierBat https://git.io/coursier-bat "%cd%\coursier.bat"
./coursier bootstrap --standalone -o scip-java com.sourcegraph:scip-java_2.13:@STABLE_VERSION@
./scip-java --help

The fat jar uses the Coursier bootstrap command to generate a binary. The fat jar binary includes all dependencies and does not require further access to the internet after installation.

The scip-java command-line interface is published to Maven Central. You can run the command-line interface as a library by directly invoking the main() method on the com.sourcegraph.scip_java.ScipJava class.

If you're using Gradle.

implementation group: 'com.sourcegraph', name: 'scip-java_2.13', version: '@STABLE_VERSION@'

If you're using Maven.

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.sourcegraph</groupId>
    <artifactId>scip-java_2.13</artifactId>
    <version>@STABLE_VERSION@</version>
</dependency>

If you're using sbt.

scalaVersion := "@SCALA_VERSION@" // Only Scala 2.13 is supported.
libraryDependencies += "com.sourcegraph" %% "scip-java" % "@STABLE_VERSION@"

The index command is only supported for Gradle, Maven and sbt. See Supported build tools for more details about other build tools.

Run the scip-java index command to generate a SCIP index for your codebase. This command should automatically infer the structure of your codebase and configure your build tool to generate SCIP.

# At the root of a Gradle, Maven or sbt codebase.
$ scip-java index
...
info: /path/to/index.scip

Customize the build command by passing additional arguments after scip-java index --.

# Example: use `mvn package` instead of `mvn verify`
scip-java index -- --batch-mode -DskipTests package

The index.scip file contains the SCIP index and is ready to be used.

Running scip-java index may perform side-effects on your build like cleaning the compile cache before indexing. This is done to make sure that all source files in the codebase get indexed.

Run scip-java index --help to learn more about the available command-line options.

com.sourcegraph.scip_java.ScipJava.printHelp(Console.out)

The scip-java indexer is implemented as a Java compiler plugin that runs as part of your regular compilation in the build tool. By using Java compiler APIs, scip-java is able to generate accurate indexing information for a broad range of Java versions.

For Java 17 and newer versions, the following JVM options are required:

--add-exports jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.model=ALL-UNNAMED
--add-exports jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.api=ALL-UNNAMED
--add-exports jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.tree=ALL-UNNAMED
--add-exports jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.util=ALL-UNNAMED
--add-exports jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.code=ALL-UNNAMED

Scala version support should always match the Scala versions that are supported by Metals, the Scala language server.

Scala.js and Scala Native have equal support as Scala on the JVM.

The Kotlin support in scip-java is less mature compared to the Java and Scala support. Don't hesitate to report issues at https://github.com/sourcegraph/scip-java if you encounter issues using the Kotlin support.

It's possible to use scip-java with any Java build tool. Some build tools can be automatically configured by the scip-java index command while other build tools may require manual configuration.

Please open an issue if your build tool is not listed in the table below. Feel free to subscribe to the tracking issues to receive updates on your build tool.

✅: automatic indexing is fully supported. Please report a bug if the scip-java index command does not work on your codebase.

❌: automatic indexing is not supported but (!) you may still be able to use scip-java by configuring it manually using the instructions here.

See the manual configuration guide for instructions on how to configure scip-java to work with any build tool.

The scip-java index build should be able to automatically index most Gradle projects. You Gradle build must contain one of the following files in the same directory where scip-java index gets invoked.

• settings.gradle
• gradlew
• build.gradle
• build.gradle.kts

The following Gradle integrations are not yet supported:

The scip-java index build should be able to automatically index most Maven projects. Your Maven build must contain a pom.xml file in the same directory where scip-java index gets invoked.

The following Maven integrations are not yet supported:

The scip-java index build should be able to automatically index most sbt projects, with the following caveats:

The scip-java index build should be able to automatically index most Mill projects, with the following caveats:

There are two approaches to index Bazel/Java codebases: automatic and manual.

Don't hesitate to open an issue in the scip-java repository if you have any questions about using scip-java with Bazel builds.

Since scip-java v0.8.24, it's possible to automatically index Bazel/Java codebases via scip-java index.

scip-java index "--bazel-scip-java-binary=$(which scip-java)"

When using this approach, indexing happens mostly inside the Bazel action graph, benefitting from parallel compilation and the Bazel build cache.

The --bazel-scip-java-binary argument is required due to implementation details, scip-java runs an aspect that requires the absolute path to the scip-java binary.

The current solution for automatic indexing step is not yet 100% hermetic and, therefore, relies on --spawn_strategy=local under the hood. Depending on your use-case, this might be OK or not. If there is demand for it, it's should be possible to make the indexing fully hermetic and compatible with Bazel's sandbox with some extra work.

It's possible to index Bazel codebases by integrating scip-java directly into the build configuration. To achieve this, scip-java must be configured in WORKSPACE and BUILD files. The scip-java repository contains an example for how to configure everything, including how to build scip-java itself from source.

• WORKSPACE: adds the required dependencies to be able to run scip-java itself.
• BUILD: configured java_library and java_binary targets to be indexed with scip-java.

Once configured, build the codebase with the SemanticDB compiler plugin.

bazel build //... --@scip_java//semanticdb-javac:enabled=true

Next, run the following command to generate the SCIP index (index.scip).

bazel run @scip_java//scip-semanticdb:bazel -- --sourceroot $PWD

# (optional) Validate that SemanticDB files were generated.
# The command below works for the `examples/bazel-example` directory in the sourcegraph/scip-java repository.
❯ jar tf bazel-bin/src/main/java/example/libexample.jar | grep semanticdb$
META-INF/semanticdb/src/main/java/example/Example.java.semanticdb

Finally, run the following commands to upload the SCIP index to Sourcegraph.

# 1. Install src
npm install -g @sourcegraph/src # Or yarn global add @sourcegraph/src

# 2. Authenticate with Sourcegraph
export SRC_ACCESS_TOKEN=sgp_YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN
export SRC_ENDPOINT=https://sourcegraph.example.com
src login # validate the token authenticates correctly

# 3. Upload SCIP index to Sourcegraph
src code-intel upload # requires index.scip file to exist