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Version: 1.0.x ๐Ÿ’€

Advanced pipeline management

Using variablesโ€‹

Once your pipeline starts to grow in size, it will become important to keep it DRY ("Don't Repeat Yourself") by using variables and environment variables. Depending on your specific need, there are a number of options.

YAML extensionsโ€‹

As described in Advanced YAML syntax.

variables:
- &golang_image 'golang:1.18'

steps:
build:
image: *golang_image
commands: build

Note that the golang_image alias cannot be used with string interpolation. But this is otherwise a good option for most cases.

YAML extensions (alternate form)โ€‹

Another approach using YAML extensions:

variables:
- global_env: &global_env
- BASH_VERSION=1.2.3
- PATH_SRC=src/
- PATH_TEST=test/
- FOO=something

steps:
build:
image: bash:${BASH_VERSION}
directory: ${PATH_SRC}
commands:
- make ${FOO} -o ${PATH_TEST}
environment: *global_env

test:
image: bash:${BASH_VERSION}
commands:
- test ${PATH_TEST}
environment:
- <<:*global_env
- ADDITIONAL_LOCAL="var value"

Persisting environment data between stepsโ€‹

One can create a file containing environment variables, and then source it in each step that needs them.

steps:
init:
image: bash
commands:
echo "FOO=hello" >> envvars
echo "BAR=world" >> envvars

debug:
image: bash
commands:
- source envvars
- echo $FOO

Declaring global variables in docker-compose.ymlโ€‹

As described in Global environment variables, one can define global variables:

services:
woodpecker-server:
# ...
environment:
- WOODPECKER_ENVIRONMENT=first_var:value1,second_var:value2
# ...

Note that this tightly couples the server and app configurations (where the app is a completely separate application). But this is a good option for truly global variables which should apply to all steps in all pipelines for all apps.