Installation

Installing Copybara

Copybara can be run in several ways: as a pre-built JAR, built from source, or via Docker.

Option 1: Download Pre-built JAR (Recommended)

The easiest way to run Copybara is to download a pre-built release.

Download the latest release

curl -fsSL -o copybara_deploy.jar \
  https://github.com/google/copybara/releases/download/v20251215/copybara_deploy.jar

Verify Java is installed (Java 11+ required)
Terminal window
```
java -version
```
Run Copybara
Terminal window
```
java -jar copybara_deploy.jar --help
```

Option 2: Build from Source

For the latest features or to contribute:

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/google/copybara.git
cd copybara

Build with Bazel

bazel build //java/com/google/copybara:copybara_deploy.jar

Run the built JAR

java -jar bazel-bin/java/com/google/copybara/copybara_deploy.jar --help

Build Requirements

Bazel: 6.0+ (or Bazelisk)
Java: JDK 11+
Git: For fetching dependencies

Option 3: Docker

Run Copybara in a container:

docker run -v $(pwd):/workspace \
  gcr.io/copybara-public/copybara:latest \
  copybara /workspace/copy.bara.sky workflow_name

Custom Docker Image

FROM eclipse-temurin:21-jdk

# Download Copybara
RUN curl -fsSL -o /opt/copybara_deploy.jar \
    https://github.com/google/copybara/releases/download/v20251215/copybara_deploy.jar

# Set up entrypoint
ENTRYPOINT ["java", "-jar", "/opt/copybara_deploy.jar"]

Build and run:

docker build -t copybara .
docker run -v $(pwd):/workspace copybara /workspace/copy.bara.sky

Verify Installation

Create a simple config to test:

# Simple validation config
core.workflow(
    name = "test",
    origin = folder.origin(),
    destination = folder.destination(),
    authoring = authoring.overwrite("Test <test@example.com>"),
)

Validate the config:

java -jar copybara_deploy.jar validate test.bara.sky

Expected output:

Configuration validated successfully.

IDE Support

IntelliJ IDEA

Install the Starlark plugin
Associate .bara.sky files with Starlark

VS Code

Install Starlark extension

Add to settings:

{
  "files.associations": {
    "*.bara.sky": "starlark"
  }
}