Cool dev automations using GitLab CI

[kristian.larsson1]

We have a fairly advanced git / CI setup for building NEDs, compiling our own NSO service code and packaging it all up in container images. Some of those bits can get a bit tedious over time and I recently wrote a bit about it and I thought I'd share here, https://plajjan.github.io/automating-git

[Jan Lindblad]

Thanks for sharing, this is great! As leaders in automation, it's particularly valuable to get inspiration and blueprints from you.

[Jason Belk]

Agreed! I follow all of Kristian's blogs, repos and podcast appearances. Very helpful.

[eric.n.dunn.ctr]

Have you tried the same operations with Jenkins?

[kristian.larsson1]

Pardon late reply, I don't login here very often.

I have not tried this with Jenkins. While I have used Jenkins in the past I have fairly limited experience with it. I think as a system, it was born in a different day and age than GitLab CI. Based on what I want to do and my expectations of what the CI system should do for me, GitLab CI is a better fit.

For example, per default GitLab CI will create a clean environment (a container) in which it checks out your code and executes the test. After it's done, that environment is removed. There is never a problem of tainting one test through the actions run by a different test. Jenkins however, does not do this for you, per default. You can configure it, but it just requires more time and care to do what GitLab CI will do out of the box. That's why we use GitLab CI.