Consider splitting CI workflow into 2 separate jobs

[JCGoran]

The current CI workflow does the following:

• install various dependencies (depending on platform)
• clone NEURON at some commit
• setup an unprivileged user
• build NEURON with CMake
• run tests with ctest
• if the URL is not empty, download the wheel from that URL
• test the wheel from that URL

We could extract the common functionality, namely:

• install various dependencies (depending on platform)
• clone NEURON at some commit
• setup an unprivileged user

into a separate template, and then run two jobs:

• one which runs the CMake build and test
• another which downloads the wheel from a URL and runs the test

[nrnhines]

Perhaps not completely to the point... How does one install a binary package and then test that installation with all the ctest tests. That would be particularly useful with wheels and windows setup.exe. I'd be happy, in addition to installing with the installer, have to git clone the (correct) nrn repository but would then like to do something like

cmake ..  -DNRN_TEST_INSTALLED=ON
ctest -j

Presumably the cmake .. command would clone the needed test repositories and use the installed nmodl to make the test folder (with all the needed libnrnmech...) and then ctest -j would launch the tests in parallel using the installed nrn environment. Or is there already a better way?

[JCGoran]

How does one install a binary package and then test that installation with all the ctest tests.

This is a bit tricky, since there is somewhat tight coupling between the build artifacts (such as the nrniv executable) and the test setup. The problem is compounded by NEURON targets requiring a lot of env variables to work properly. I think it's possible by using the procedure outlined here, but it would take a bit of work to put all of the pieces together.