Running github actions for `uses` in another directory - maven

Question

My maven repository is in ./java directory. I want to run maven test in ./java directory, but I got following error:
The goal you specified requires a project to execute but there is no POM in this directory (/github/workspace). Please verify you invoked Maven from the correct directory. -> [Help 1]
Here is my workflow:
# This is a basic workflow to help you get started with Actions
name: CI
on:
push:
branches: [ main ]
pull_request:
branches: [ main ]
workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
build:
defaults:
run:
working-directory: java
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout#v2
- name: Run maven test
uses: xlui/action-maven-cli#master
with:
lifecycle: 'clean package test'
It seems that working-directory is useless, how can I fix it?

Answer 1

working-directory can only be applied to run: steps (e.g it does not work on actions)
The action xlui/action-maven-cli#master currently doesn't allow to inform a path to execute the maven commands.
You could either
use another (similar) action available on the Github Marketplace which allows to inform a directory path before executing maven commands,
open a PR to update the xlui/action-maven-cli action, adding an input path (or env variable) to perform a cd command before executing the maven commands,
install maven directly on your workflow within a step(for example setup maven action), before running the maven command directly on another step (without uses the action) with run: | with a cd ./java before executing sh -c "mvn clean package test",
Something like this (for the 3rd option):
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout#v2
- name: Install maven
run: |
...
- name: Run maven command
run: |
cd ./java
mvn clean package test