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Advanced usage

Advanced YAML syntaxโ€‹

YAML has some advanced syntax features that can be used like variables to reduce duplication in your pipeline config:

Anchors & aliasesโ€‹

You can use YAML anchors & aliases as variables in your pipeline config.

To convert this:

steps:
- name: test
image: golang:1.18
commands: go test ./...
- name: build
image: golang:1.18
commands: build

Just add a new section called variables like this:

+variables:
+ - &golang_image 'golang:1.18'

steps:
- name: test
- image: golang:1.18
+ image: *golang_image
commands: go test ./...
- name: build
- image: golang:1.18
+ image: *golang_image
commands: build

Map merges and overwritesโ€‹

variables:
- &base-plugin-settings
target: dist
recursive: false
try: true
- &special-setting
special: true
- &some-plugin codeberg.org/6543/docker-images/print_env

steps:
- name: develop
image: *some-plugin
settings:
<<: [*base-plugin-settings, *special-setting] # merge two maps into an empty map
when:
branch: develop

- name: main
image: *some-plugin
settings:
<<: *base-plugin-settings # merge one map and ...
try: false # ... overwrite original value
ongoing: false # ... adding a new value
when:
branch: main

Sequence mergesโ€‹

variables:
pre_cmds: &pre_cmds
- echo start
- whoami
post_cmds: &post_cmds
- echo stop
hello_cmd: &hello_cmd
- echo hello

steps:
- name: step1
image: debian
commands:
- <<: *pre_cmds # prepend a sequence
- echo exec step now do dedicated things
- <<: *post_cmds # append a sequence
- name: step2
image: debian
commands:
- <<: [*pre_cmds, *hello_cmd] # prepend two sequences
- echo echo from second step
- <<: *post_cmds

Referencesโ€‹

Persisting environment data between stepsโ€‹

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

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

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

Declaring global variablesโ€‹

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

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.