Using tsrc with Continuous Integration (CI)

GitHub Actions

Let suppose you have a private GitHub organization holding several private repositories and tsrc to synchronize them using the SSH protocol. Let suppose you want to use GitHub Actions to download the code source of your organization, compile it and run some non regression tests. What to write to achieve this with tsrc?

Step 1: Your tsrc manifest

Your tsrc manifest.yml looks something like this:

repos:
  - url: git@github.com:project1/foo
    dest: foo

The git@ means SSH protocol.

Step 2: Create your GitHub workflows file

In your private GitHub repository holding the GitHub workflows files, create the folder .github/workflows and your yaml file with the desired name and the following content. For more information about GitHub actions syntax see this video:

name: tsrc with private github repos
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  export_linux:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - name: Installing tsrc tool
      run: |
        sudo apt-get update
        sudo apt-get install -y python3
        python -m pip install tsrc

    - name: Cloning private github repos
      run: |
        git config --global url."https://${{ secrets.ACCESS_TOKEN }}@github.com/".insteadOf git@github.com:
        export WORKSPACE=$GITHUB_WORKSPACE/your_project
        mkdir -p $WORKSPACE
        cd $WORKSPACE
        tsrc init git@github.com:yourorganisation/manifest.git
        tsrc sync

This script will run on the latest Ubuntu Docker and triggers steps: - The first step named Installing tsrc tool allows to install python3 and then tsrc. - The second step named Cloning private github repos creates a folder named your_project for your workspace and call the initialization and synchronization of your repositories.

The important command is:

git config --global url."https://${{ secrets.ACCESS_TOKEN }}@github.com/".insteadOf git@github.com:

which allows to replace the SSH syntax by the HTTPs syntax on your GitHub repository names.

Step 3: Create the GitHub secret

For GitHub organization one member of the team has the responsibility to hold a Personal access tokens for the organization. Go https://github.com/settings/tokens and click on the button Generate new token then click on repo checkbox then click on the button Generate token.

Now, this token shall be saved into an action secret named ACCESS_TOKEN inside the GitHub repository holding the GitHub workflows files.

Step 4: Enjoy

In the menu Actions of your repository you can trig the workflow. In this example we used workflow_dispatch to perform manual triggers. So click on the button to start the process. Once this step done with success, you can update your workflow yaml to complete your CI work: compilation of your project, run non regression tests, etc.