Ability to combine workflows or set global steps out of workflow

[Reedyuk]

Use case

I have several workflows, test pull request, run integration tests, release build.

They share several steps, so currently i have to define them in the first workflow to be able to reference them in another workflow.

My use case, I have a set of steps that run integration tests e.g. run emulator, run integration test command. These live in the integration tests workflow, but get used by *runIntegration test reference in other workflows.

Problem: If i decide to create another workflow in the codemagic.yaml file and say i put this new workflow at the top of file, it sucks because i have to move my reusable steps in the first workflow.

Idea

2 possible solutions.

1. Ability to link another workflow, just like we do with script steps, where it will inehrit just the steps in the workflow. So then in my example, i could just call *runIntegrationTestsWorkflow like i would usually do in steps.

2. Ability to define a set of 'global' steps at the top of a workflow, then reference them in workflows like we normally do. This would mean then most workflows would look less busy and just reference the steps.

[mikhail-tokarev]

thanks for trying Codemagic and making all this proposals 🙌 would you be interesting to have a call to learn your case better? usually 20-30 minutes is enough.

re your question: this is completely on YAML side and for instance internally we have definitions section to include everything we reuse later (it can be named global or whatever else).

Another option is to create scripts folder in your repository that will contain shell scripts and invoke them from the codemagic.yaml workflows.

In both case our goal at Codemagic to make your CI/CD pipeline as flexible as possible and avoid any "vendor-lock", so you can use universal solutions like YAML or shell scripts. I hope it makes sense.

[mikhail-tokarev]

just small example to explain codemagic.yaml file structure better

definitions:
  scripts:
    - &foo
      ...
    - &bar
      ...
  # you can reuse everything not just scripts
  cache: &cache

workflows:
  my-workflow:
    cache: *cache
    scripts:
      - *foo
      - *bar

[Reedyuk]

i wasnt aware you can use definitions block. I will use this going forward, thanks.

As for the shell scripts, most of my script blocks are literally just calling single gradle tasks. Generally i have put most of my tasks into gradle tasks and then its just a one liner on the command line, but I want to avoid duplicating even that, hence i will use definitions block