Consolidate common behaviors between test and collateral jobs. #163
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| run: | | ||
| sudo apt update | ||
| sudo apt install -y libxml2-dev libxslt-dev | ||
| shell: bash |
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I really don't love that moving to a composite workflow requires bash be specified when it wasn't before.
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You can change to reusable workflows instead of composite actions to combat this, FYI. (You seem to confuse the terminology here?)
I want to share something. I'm not advertising this very much, but I'm working on something in this space, too.
It's a functional PoC that is not in its own repository just yet, and I don't consider it fully ready for prime time. But you can play with https://github.com/sphinx-contrib/sphinxcontrib-towncrier/blob/72d6def/.github/workflows/reusable-tox.yml by adding something like uses: sphinx-contrib/sphinxcontrib-towncrier/.github/workflows/reusable-tox.yml@72d6defdf31803e9d8cbf0f97b10724dd72658a6 into one of your experimental branches. Just pass all the required inputs into it.
It will end up in https://github.com/stdlib-workflows (or perhaps https://github.com/tox-dev/workflow) a bit later: for now, I'm copying it around across a few projects while I'm testing how well this thing covers various corner cases.
It's designed to work with matrixes defined in the top-level calling workflow, just like you have here.
To enable project-specific customization, I'm currently trying to work out what hooks it needs.
Here's one: https://github.com/sphinx-contrib/sphinxcontrib-towncrier/blob/72d6def/.github/stdlib-workflows/reusable-tox/actions/post-src-checkout/action.yml. It is invoked if a calling project has an action with a specific name in a specific location.
So now I'm looking to check what parts of the reusable workflow could be customizable. Specifically, I want to instrument it with more hooks (there's one job that doesn't entirely fit the pattern — https://github.com/sphinx-contrib/sphinxcontrib-towncrier/blob/72d6def/.github/workflows/ci-cd.yml#L311-L470 — so I'm looking into what it needs). I'll try to make those hooks overrideable per-toxenv. And it looks like it'll be useful to pass some sort of context from the calling workflow for access from within the hooks and expose the outputs of each hook through the reusable workflow, so the top-level one could do something about it.
| - name: Common | ||
| uses: ./.github/actions/common |
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The other degradation that occurs with composite workflows is all the inner steps get folded into this "Common" step.
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...which is why I prefer reusable workflows to actions. Actions are there to encapsulate a single visual step, while workflows would show all.
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I'm not looking forward to the merge toil this change is going to create. |
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I'm going to sit on this one for a while. In the meantime, have a look at https://github.com/jaraco/jaraco.net/actions/runs/13577725111 for an example of it in action. |
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I had another idea to use YAML anchors. I'll compare that approach before merging here. |
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I've started work in feature/anchor branch, but it isn't yet supported. |
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Fun fact: GitLab CI does support YAML anchors. |
Not according to this run 
What makes you think they're supported? |
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I said GitLab CI, not GitHub 😄 |
FWIW, they are considered controversial for a number of reasons. And while I used to use them heavily in the Travis CI times, I was often seeing confusion when other humans would attempt parsing them. It can be a UX disaster. |
Closes #162