Cron/Scheduled Tasks

[evertonlperes]

I was wondering how we can set up a cron job (specific on main branch) and not sure how to configure it.

Is there a way to setup the cron job like, passing a specific tag, e.g.: schedule ?

task:
 schedule: 0 7 * * 1-6 <-- like this
  trigger_type: manual
  name: E2E Tests
  timeout_in: 45
  container:
    image: ubuntu:20.04
    kvm: true
  env:
    DEBIAN_FRONTEND: noninteractive

Also, I might misunderstood the documentation, but it's not clear the steps to configure the cron builds/tasks in the repository settings.
Should I configure a environment and create the CIRRUS_CRON as a secret?

Thanks!

[evertonlperes]

Ops.. nvm, just found the repository settings page on cirrus-ci.com :P

[fkorotkov]

Here is documentation around Cron builds. There is a useful link to a generator for the cron expressions. 👌

[evertonlperes]

@fkorotkov
Another question :P
I have a testing scenario that I'd like to keep the workflow as a manual trigger and cron task enabled.
The current behaviour is:

• The cron will trigger the build on the correct time
• The task won't be trigger automatically
• You need to manually trigger the cron build in order to start the task.

I was wondering if this is the expected behaviour or there's another way to start a cron build task, bypassing the manual trigger.

Examples:
https://cirrus-ci.com/build/5789479486095360
https://cirrus-ci.com/build/5654840784191488
https://cirrus-ci.com/build/5956991196594176

Thanks for helping!

[fkorotkov]

It's an expected behavior.

I guess a workaround can be to replace trigger_type: manual with:

matrix:
  - trigger_type: automatic
    only_if: $CIRRUS_CRON != ''
  - trigger_type: manual
    only_if: $CIRRUS_CRON == ''

[evertonlperes]

Sweet, thanks @fkorotkov - it works like a charm.

Here's my changes if someone has the same scenario:

task:
  matrix:
    # Keep manual trigger for all pushes (prs and merges)
    - trigger_type: manual
      only_if: $CIRRUS_CRON == ''
    # Only trigger task automatically if it's a CRON task and main branch
    - trigger_type: automatic
      only_if: $CIRRUS_CRON != '' && $BRANCH == "main"
  name: XPTO_BUILD
  timeout_in: 60
  container: node:latest
  (...)