Add Flag to Prevent Error on Empty Deployments

[zaclummys]

Background

We use the sfdx-git-delta plugin to enable incremental deployments and destructive changes in our production org. Our deployment workflow is as follows:

1. When a PR is merged, we run sfdx-git-delta to compare the source and target branches, which generates a package.xml containing only the changed metadata:

   sf sgd source delta --to ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.sha }} --from ${{ github.event.pull_request.base.sha }}

2. We then deploy the generated package.xml:

   sf project deploy start -x package/package.xml

However, many PRs do not modify any Salesforce metadata. This results in an empty package.xml, and the deployment job fails with Error(NothingToDeploy).

Proposal

To improve CI/CD pipelines and maintain retrocompatibility, we propose adding a new parameter to sf project deploy start:

• Flag: --allow-empty-package-xml
• Description: Prevents the CLI from throwing an error when the provided package.xml does not contain any metadata.
• Usage Example:

  sf project deploy start -x package/package.xml --allow-empty-package-xml

Tip

The flag name --allow-empty-package-xml is just a suggestion. Any name that clearly conveys its purpose would work.

Benefits

• Enables CI/CD pipelines to run without error even when no metadata was changed.
• Simplifies scripting and automation by avoiding special-case handling for empty packages.
• Retrocompatible and opt-in for teams that want this behavior.

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Thanks in advance! 🙂

[cristiand391]

hey, sorry for the late reply.

When a PR is merged, we run sfdx-git-delta to compare the source and target branches, which generates a package.xml containing only the changed metadata
...
We then deploy the generated package.xml:

I see a few alternatives here:

1. could sfdx-git-delta fail if it detects no changes instead of generating an empty manifest?
   maybe propose it under a new flag since it would be a breaking change.

2. if 1 isn't possible, you could verify the length of the manifest using yq (jq for yaml/xml):
   https://github.com/mikefarah/yq

I'm a bit hesitant to add new flag for this, mostly due to the specific handling and that project deploy start is already too complex (+25 flags!)