Pipeline

A pipeline describes a workflow operation in Zuul. It associates jobs for a given project with triggering and reporting events.

Its flexible configuration allows for characterizing any number of workflows, and by specifying each as a named configuration, makes it easy to apply similar workflow operations to projects or groups of projects.

By way of example, one of the primary uses of Zuul is to perform project gating. To do so, one can create a gate pipeline which tells Zuul that when a certain event (such as approval by a code reviewer) occurs, the corresponding change or pull request should be enqueued into the pipeline. When that happens, the jobs which have been configured to run for that project in the gate pipeline are run, and when they complete, the pipeline reports the results to the user.

Pipeline configuration items may only appear in config-projects.

Generally, a Zuul administrator would define a small number of pipelines which represent the workflow processes used in their environment. Each project can then be added to the available pipelines as appropriate.

Here is an example check pipeline, which runs whenever a new patchset is created in Gerrit. If the associated jobs all report success, the pipeline reports back to Gerrit with Verified vote of +1, or if at least one of them fails, a -1:

- pipeline:
    name: check
    manager: independent
    trigger:
      my_gerrit:
        - event: patchset-created
    success:
      my_gerrit:
        Verified: 1
    failure:
      my_gerrit:
        Verified: -1

pipeline

The attributes available on a pipeline are as follows (all are optional unless otherwise specified):

pipeline.name (required): This is used later in the project definition to indicate what jobs should be run for events in the pipeline.

pipeline.manager (required)

There are several schemes for managing pipelines. The following table summarizes their features; each is described in detail below.

Manager	Use Case	Dependencies	Merge	Shared Queues	Window
Independent	check, post	No	No	No	Unlimited
Dependent	gate	Yes	Yes	Yes	Variable
Serial	deploy	No	No	Yes	1
Supercedent	post, promote	No	No	Project-ref	1

independent

Every event in this pipeline should be treated as independent of other events in the pipeline. This is appropriate when the order of events in the pipeline doesn’t matter because the results of the actions this pipeline performs can not affect other events in the pipeline. For example, when a change is first uploaded for review, you may want to run tests on that change to provide early feedback to reviewers. At the end of the tests, the change is not going to be merged, so it is safe to run these tests in parallel without regard to any other changes in the pipeline. They are independent.

Another type of pipeline that is independent is a post-merge pipeline. In that case, the changes have already merged, so the results can not affect any other events in the pipeline.

dependent

The dependent pipeline manager is designed for gating. It ensures that every change is tested exactly as it is going to be merged into the repository. An ideal gating system would test one change at a time, applied to the tip of the repository, and only if that change passed tests would it be merged. Then the next change in line would be tested the same way. In order to achieve parallel testing of changes, the dependent pipeline manager performs speculative execution on changes. It orders changes based on their entry into the pipeline. It begins testing all changes in parallel, assuming that each change ahead in the pipeline will pass its tests. If they all succeed, all the changes can be tested and merged in parallel. If a change near the front of the pipeline fails its tests, each change behind it ignores whatever tests have been completed and are tested again without the change in front. This way gate tests may run in parallel but still be tested correctly, exactly as they will appear in the repository when merged.

For more detail on the theory and operation of Zuul’s dependent pipeline manager, see: Project Gating.

serial

This pipeline manager supports shared queues (like depedent pipelines) but only one item in each shared queue is processed at a time.

This may be useful for post-merge pipelines which perform partial production deployments (i.e., there are jobs with file matchers which only deploy to affected parts of the system). In such a case it is important for every change to be processed, but they must still be processed one at a time in order to ensure that the production system is not inadvertently regressed. Support for shared queues ensures that if multiple projects are involved deployment runs still execute sequentially.

supercedent

This is like an independent pipeline, in that every item is distinct, except that items are grouped by project and ref, and only one item for each project-ref is processed at a time. If more than one additional item is enqueued for the project-ref, previously enqueued items which have not started processing are removed.

In other words, this pipeline manager will only run jobs for the most recent item enqueued for a given project-ref.

This may be useful for post-merge pipelines which perform artifact builds where only the latest version is of use. In these cases, build resources can be conserved by avoiding building intermediate versions.

Note

Since this pipeline filters intermediate buildsets using it in combination with file filters on jobs is dangerous. In this case jobs of in between buildsets can be unexpectedly skipped entirely. If file filters are needed the independent or serial pipeline managers should be used.

pipeline.post-review Default: false

This is a boolean which indicates that this pipeline executes code that has been reviewed. Some jobs perform actions which should not be permitted with unreviewed code. When this value is false those jobs will not be permitted to run in the pipeline. If a pipeline is designed only to be used after changes are reviewed or merged, set this value to true to permit such jobs.

For more information, see Secret and job.post-review.

pipeline.description: This field may be used to provide a textual description of the pipeline. It may appear in the status page or in documentation.

pipeline.variant-description Default: branch name: This field may be used to provide a textual description of the variant. It may appear in the status page or in documentation.

pipeline.success-message Default: Build successful.: The introductory text in reports when all the voting jobs are successful.

pipeline.failure-message Default: Build failed.: The introductory text in reports when at least one voting job fails.

pipeline.start-message Default: Starting {pipeline.name} jobs.: The introductory text in reports when jobs are started. Three replacement fields are available status_url, pipeline and change.

pipeline.enqueue-message: The introductory text in reports when an item is enqueued. Empty by default.

pipeline.merge-failure-message Default: Merge failed.: The introductory text in the message reported when a change fails to merge with the current state of the repository. Defaults to “Merge failed.”

pipeline.no-jobs-message: The introductory text in reports when an item is dequeued without running any jobs. Empty by default.

pipeline.dequeue-message Default: Build canceled.: The introductory text in reports when an item is dequeued. The dequeue message only applies if the item was dequeued without a result.

pipeline.footer-message: Supplies additional information after test results. Useful for adding information about the CI system such as debugging and contact details.

pipeline.trigger

At least one trigger source must be supplied for each pipeline. Triggers are not exclusive – matching events may be placed in multiple pipelines, and they will behave independently in each of the pipelines they match.

Triggers are loaded from their connection name. The driver type of the connection will dictate which options are available. See Drivers.

pipeline.require

If this section is present, it establishes prerequisites for any kind of item entering the Pipeline. Regardless of how the item is to be enqueued (via any trigger or automatic dependency resolution), the conditions specified here must be met or the item will not be enqueued. These requirements may vary depending on the source of the item being enqueued.

Requirements are loaded from their connection name. The driver type of the connection will dictate which options are available. See Drivers.

pipeline.reject

If this section is present, it establishes prerequisites that can block an item from being enqueued. It can be considered a negative version of pipeline.require.

Requirements are loaded from their connection name. The driver type of the connection will dictate which options are available. See Drivers.

pipeline.supercedes: The name of a pipeline, or a list of names, that this pipeline supercedes. When a change is enqueued in this pipeline, it will be removed from the pipelines listed here. For example, a gate pipeline may supercede a check pipeline so that test resources are not spent running near-duplicate jobs simultaneously.

pipeline.dequeue-on-new-patchset Default: true: Normally, if a new patchset is uploaded to a change that is in a pipeline, the existing entry in the pipeline will be removed (with jobs canceled and any dependent changes that can no longer merge as well. To suppress this behavior (and allow jobs to continue running), set this to false.

pipeline.ignore-dependencies Default: false: In any kind of pipeline (dependent or independent), Zuul will attempt to enqueue all dependencies ahead of the current change so that they are tested together (independent pipelines report the results of each change regardless of the results of changes ahead). To ignore dependencies completely in an independent pipeline, set this to true. This option is ignored by dependent pipelines.

pipeline.precedence Default: normal: Indicates how the build scheduler should prioritize jobs for different pipelines. Each pipeline may have one precedence, jobs for pipelines with a higher precedence will be run before ones with lower. The value should be one of high, normal, or low. Default: normal.

The following options configure reporters. Reporters are complementary to triggers; where a trigger is an event on a connection which causes Zuul to enqueue an item, a reporter is the action performed on a connection when an item is dequeued after its jobs complete. The actual syntax for a reporter is defined by the driver which implements it. See Drivers for more information.

pipeline.success: Describes where Zuul should report to if all the jobs complete successfully. This section is optional; if it is omitted, Zuul will run jobs and do nothing on success – it will not report at all. If the section is present, the listed reporters will be asked to report on the jobs. The reporters are listed by their connection name. The options available depend on the driver for the supplied connection.

pipeline.failure: These reporters describe what Zuul should do if at least one job fails.

pipeline.merge-failure: These reporters describe what Zuul should do if it is unable to merge in the patchset. If no merge-failure reporters are listed then the failure reporters will be used to notify of unsuccessful merges.

pipeline.enqueue: These reporters describe what Zuul should do when an item is enqueued into the pipeline. This may be used to indicate to a system or user that Zuul is aware of the triggering event even though it has not evaluated whether any jobs will run.

pipeline.start: These reporters describe what Zuul should do when jobs start running for an item in the pipeline. This can be used, for example, to reset a previously reported result.

pipeline.no-jobs: These reporters describe what Zuul should do when an item is dequeued from a pipeline without running any jobs. This may be used to indicate to a system or user that the pipeline is not relevant for a change.

pipeline.disabled: These reporters describe what Zuul should do when a pipeline is disabled. See disable-after-consecutive-failures.

pipeline.dequeue: These reporters describe what Zuul should do if an item is dequeued. The dequeue reporters will only apply, if the item was dequeued without a result.

The following options can be used to alter Zuul’s behavior to mitigate situations in which jobs are failing frequently (perhaps due to a problem with an external dependency, or unusually high non-deterministic test failures).

pipeline.disable-after-consecutive-failures: If set, a pipeline can enter a disabled state if too many changes in a row fail. When this value is exceeded the pipeline will stop reporting to any of the success, failure or merge-failure reporters and instead only report to the disabled reporters. (No start reports are made when a pipeline is disabled).

pipeline.window Default: 20: Dependent pipeline managers only. Zuul can rate limit dependent pipelines in a manner similar to TCP flow control. Jobs are only started for items in the queue if they are within the actionable window for the pipeline. The initial length of this window is configurable with this value. The value given should be a positive integer value. A value of 0 disables rate limiting on the dependent pipeline manager.

pipeline.window-floor Default: 3: Dependent pipeline managers only. This is the minimum value for the window described above. Should be a positive non zero integer value.

pipeline.window-increase-type Default: linear

Dependent pipeline managers only. This value describes how the window should grow when changes are successfully merged by zuul.

linear: Indicates that window-increase-factor should be added to the previous window value.

exponential: Indicates that window-increase-factor should be multiplied against the previous window value and the result will become the window size.

pipeline.window-increase-factor Default: 1: Dependent pipeline managers only. The value to be added or multiplied against the previous window value to determine the new window after successful change merges.

pipeline.window-decrease-type Default: exponential

Dependent pipeline managers only. This value describes how the window should shrink when changes are not able to be merged by Zuul.

linear: Indicates that window-decrease-factor should be subtracted from the previous window value.

exponential: Indicates that window-decrease-factor should be divided against the previous window value and the result will become the window size.

pipeline.window-decrease-factor Default: 2: Dependent pipeline managers only. The value to be subtracted or divided against the previous window value to determine the new window after unsuccessful change merges.