Encountered an unresolved tag '!reference

[marais-vzc]

Given the yaml:

variables:
  JAVA_JDK_VERSION: 17
  BUILD_NUMBER_OFFSET: 500
  
include:
  - project: "eng-systems/templates"
    file: "/build-types/java-lambda.yml"

octopus-deploy-release:
  rules:
    - !reference [.run_never, rules]

And the code:

var deserializer = new DeserializerBuilder()
        .WithNamingConvention(CamelCaseNamingConvention.Instance)
        .WithAttemptingUnquotedStringTypeDeserialization()
        .Build();

return deserializer.Deserialize<object>(reader);

We are seeing the error: Encountered an unresolved tag '!reference.

Now, GitLab says we can simply add the following to .vscode/settings.json:

{
  "yaml.customTags": ["!reference sequence"]
}

How do we account for this using the DeserializerBuilder? I tried to add .WithNodeTypeResolver(new MapTagsToObject()) (See here) without success.

Anything else that could be tried?

[EdwardCooke]

You would use the .WithTagMapping method on the DeserializerBuilder.
You can do string instead of object and get the same result, just depends on what you want it to be in the end result.
For example:

var yaml = """
    variables:
      JAVA_JDK_VERSION: 17
      BUILD_NUMBER_OFFSET: 500

    include:
      - project: "eng-systems/templates"
        file: "/build-types/java-lambda.yml"

    octopus-deploy-release:
      rules:
        - !reference [.run_never, rules]
    """;

var deserializer = new DeserializerBuilder()
        .WithNamingConvention(CamelCaseNamingConvention.Instance)
        .WithAttemptingUnquotedStringTypeDeserialization()
        .WithTagMapping("!reference", typeof(object[]))
        .Build();

Note, with the unquoted brackets it'll see it as an array. This serializes it to effectively the same yaml

var o = deserializer.Deserialize<object>(yaml);
var serializer = new SerializerBuilder()
    .WithNamingConvention(CamelCaseNamingConvention.Instance)
    .WithTagMapping("!reference", typeof(object[]))
    .Build();
var x = serializer.Serialize(o);
Console.WriteLine(x);

Result:

variables:
  JAVA_JDK_VERSION: 17
  BUILD_NUMBER_OFFSET: 500
include:
- project: eng-systems/templates
  file: /build-types/java-lambda.yml
octopus-deploy-release:
  rules:
  - !reference
    - .run_never
    - rules