Testing changes recursively

This guide provides instructions for using skart to test updates in dependent ska repositories.

The deps-update-devel standard make target is designed to update dependencies with skart and poetry on a given (development) branch. If the specified branch already exists, it checks out and pulls that branch. If not, it creates a new one. The function then updates dependencies. If there are changes, it commits them and pushes the branch to GitLab. It waits for the CI pipeline to run, checking for successful execution and potential failures.

make deps-update-devel used together with skart invoke-recursive gives the unique functionality of one being able to update several dependent repositories with a single command, not having to worry about creating branches, manually triggering dependency updates or pushing any code on every single repository.

Note

If at any point a pipeline fails, the recursive execution is terminated and remaining repositories are not updated. You will need to fix the problem on the given branch, then restart execution.

Before starting, make sure that every repository that is involved has the following set up:

  • it uses the latest .make submodule

  • its Makefile contains the following information:

    include .make/dependencies.mk

PROJECT_NAME = <gitlab repository slug>
PROJECT_PATH = ska-telescope/<path to repository>
ARTEFACT_TYPE = <artefact type: oci or python>

    If your artefact is neither an oci image nor a python package, use something that is more relevant, e.g. helm-chart. This will mean, however, that skart will not wait for the pipeline being executed on the given artefact when run with some of the make targets. For a list of supported types see the pipelineWait function in the SKA CI/CD Makefiles repository.

Steps for recursive testing of dependent repositories:

  1. Ensure all necessary tools and dependencies are installed, including ska-rt.

  2. Export the environment variable with the branch name that you will use for testing:

    export BRANCH_NAME=<your-branch-name>

    This is used by the deps-update-devel make target.

  3. Run skart to test the updates:

    skart invoke-recursive --branch <your-branch-name> -- make deps-update-devel

    make sure you specify the branch so that skart also uses the correct one.

  4. If needed, adjust the following environment variables that affect the behavior:

    • SKART_REQUERY: Set the interval (in seconds) to re-check pipeline status.

    • SKART_WAIT: Set the maximum time (in seconds) to wait for pipelines to complete.

    You can override the default values using the following command-line arguments:

    • --wait <seconds>: default is 0s.

    • --requery <seconds>: default is 5s.

  5. skart will wait for the pipelines to complete based on the configured wait and requery intervals. Monitor the output for any errors or failures during testing.

  6. Iterate: if any errors occurred in any of the CI pipelines, you will need to get those fixed before rerunning the skart command again.