Re: [PATCH v2 3/4] automation: allow selecting individual jobs via CI variables

[Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 14 Feb 2025, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki wrote:
> Debugging sometimes involves running specific jobs on different
> versions. It's useful to easily avoid running all of the not interesting
> ones (for given case) to save both time and CI resources. Doing so used
> to require changing the yaml files, usually in several places.
> Ease this step by adding SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY variable that takes a regex.
> Note that one needs to satisfy job dependencies on their own (for
> example if a test job needs a build job, that specific build job
> needs to be included too).
> 
> The variable can be specified via Gitlab web UI when scheduling a
> pipeline, but it can be also set when doing git push directly:
> 
>     git push -o ci.variable=SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY="/job1|job2/"
> 
> More details at https://docs.gitlab.co.jp/ee/user/project/push_options.html
> 
> The variable needs to include regex for selecting jobs, including
> enclosing slashes.

Does it work with a single job like this?

git push -o ci.variable=SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY="job1"

If it does, is there any way we could use to automatically whitelist its
dependencies too? Because that would be so much easier to use...


> A coma/space separated list of jobs to select would be friendlier UX,
> but unfortunately that is not supported:
> https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/209904 (note the proposed
> workaround doesn't work for job-level CI_JOB_NAME).
> On the other hand, the regex is more flexible (one can select for
> example all arm32 jobs).
> 
> Signed-off-by: Marek Marczykowski-Górecki <marmarek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> This probably wants documenting beyond this commit message. I don't
> think we have any CI-related docs anywhere, do we? Some new file in
> docs/misc?

Please add documentation for it. Other than that, I think it could be
committed. I would prefer you also added documentation about alternative
methods such as removing all the jobs except the ones you care about.


> And also, it's possible to extend web ui for starting pipelines to
> include pre-defined variables. I use it in qubes here if you want to
> see:
> https://gitlab.com/QubesOS/qubes-continuous-integration/-/pipelines/new
> Does it make sense to include SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY this way too?
> Personally, I'll probably use it via cmdline push only anyway, but I
> don't know what workflows other people have.
> ---
>  automation/gitlab-ci/build.yaml |  6 ++++++
>  automation/gitlab-ci/test.yaml  | 14 ++++++++++++++
>  2 files changed, 20 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/automation/gitlab-ci/build.yaml b/automation/gitlab-ci/build.yaml
> index 35e224366f62..f12de00a164a 100644
> --- a/automation/gitlab-ci/build.yaml
> +++ b/automation/gitlab-ci/build.yaml
> @@ -12,6 +12,12 @@
>        - '*/*.log'
>      when: always
>    needs: []
> +  rules:
> +  - if: $SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY && $CI_JOB_NAME =~ $SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY
> +    when: always
> +  - if: $SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY
> +    when: never
> +  - when: on_success
>  
>  .gcc-tmpl:
>    variables: &gcc
> diff --git a/automation/gitlab-ci/test.yaml b/automation/gitlab-ci/test.yaml
> index c21a37933881..93632f1f9204 100644
> --- a/automation/gitlab-ci/test.yaml
> +++ b/automation/gitlab-ci/test.yaml
> @@ -1,6 +1,11 @@
>  .test-jobs-common:
>    stage: test
>    image: ${XEN_REGISTRY}/${CONTAINER}
> +  rules:
> +  - if: $SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY && $CI_JOB_NAME =~ $SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY
> +  - if: $SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY
> +    when: never
> +  - when: on_success
>  
>  .arm64-test-needs: &arm64-test-needs
>    - alpine-3.18-arm64-rootfs-export
> @@ -99,6 +104,9 @@
>        - '*.dtb'
>      when: always
>    rules:
> +    - if: $SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY && $CI_JOB_NAME =~ $SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY
> +    - if: $SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY
> +      when: never
>      - if: $XILINX_JOBS == "true" && $CI_COMMIT_REF_PROTECTED == "true"
>    tags:
>      - xilinx
> @@ -117,6 +125,9 @@
>        - '*.log'
>      when: always
>    rules:
> +    - if: $SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY && $CI_JOB_NAME =~ $SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY
> +    - if: $SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY
> +      when: never
>      - if: $XILINX_JOBS == "true" && $CI_COMMIT_REF_PROTECTED == "true"
>    tags:
>      - xilinx
> @@ -137,6 +148,9 @@
>        - '*.log'
>      when: always
>    rules:
> +    - if: $SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY && $CI_JOB_NAME =~ $SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY
> +    - if: $SELECTED_JOBS_ONLY
> +      when: never
>      - if: $QUBES_JOBS == "true" && $CI_COMMIT_REF_PROTECTED == "true"
>    tags:
>      - qubes-hw2
> -- 
> git-series 0.9.1
>