cicee

Continuous Integration Containerized Execution Environment

JeremiahSanders
0
0
C#

Continuous Integration Containerized Execution Environment (CICEE)

NuGet

What is CICEE?

CICEE is an opinionated orchestrator of continuous integration processes. CICEE executes commands in a Docker container, using the files in your project repository, and provides a convention-based structure for fulfilling dependencies.

CICEE also provides a continuous integration shell function library to support the use of shell script-based continuous integration workflows.

What does CICEE require? What are its dependencies?

  • bash: bash shell
  • docker: Docker command-line interface
  • dotnet: .NET SDK (6.x, 7.x, 8.x, and 9.x supported)

Why use CICEE?

CICEE users’ most common use cases:

  • Validating project code, e.g., during a pull request review, consistently on both developer workstations and continuous integration servers.
  • Assembling distributable artifacts, e.g., Docker images or NPM packages.
  • Running integration tests requiring dependencies, e.g., databases.
  • Executing code cleanup, linting, reformatting, or other common development workflows, without prior tool installation.

How do you use CICEE?

CICEE .NET Templates

.NET solution templates are available in the Cicee.Templates NuGet package. These templates provide easy templates for repository initialization which follow CICEE conventions.

To install/update, execute:

dotnet new install Cicee.Templates

As of Cicee.Templates version 0.2.0, the following templates are provided:

  • cicee-classlib-package: A classlib-based Package Solution
    • This template provides a base for creating libraries, distributed as NuGet packages. It includes: a source project, based upon the classlib template, a unit test project, based upon the xunit template, and CI scripts.
  • cicee-webapi-service: A webapi-based Service Solution
    • This template provides a base for creating web APIs, distributed as Docker images. It includes: a source project, based upon the webapi template, unit test and integration test projects, based upon the xunit template, and CI scripts.

Quickstart

Step 0: Install CICEE

dotnet tool install -g cicee

If you already have CICEE installed, but want to update to the latest release:

dotnet tool update -g cicee

Step 1: Add a Continuous Integration Containerized Execution Environment

Open a Bash terminal session in the root directory of the project.

Execute cicee init repository.

dotnet new tool-manifest && dotnet tool install --local cicee && dotnet cicee init repository

This adds:

  • a .NET local tool installation of CICEE
  • a Dockerfile which will provide all the tools needed to perform the project’s continuous integration tasks.
  • docker-compose files which define the continuous integration containerized execution environment.
  • a small, flexible continuous integration workflow template. Three initial workflows are provided:
    • compose: Create the project’s distributable artifacts. For example, render SASS to CSS, compile source code, build docker images, compress zip archives, package for NPM, etc.
    • publish: Publish the project’s distributable artifacts to their repositories. For example, push docker images, publish a package to NuGet, etc.
    • validate: Validate the current project for correctness, completeness, or other rules. Supports automated checks which should be executed during pull request review.

Step 2: Try It Out

Open a Bash terminal session in the root directory of the project.

Execute cicee exec and provide one of the CI workflow entry points.

dotnet cicee exec --entrypoint ci/bin/validate.sh

Next Step

  • Update continuous integration configuration. This is normally done in project-metadata.json (which was created by cicee init repository). However, if there is no project-metadata.json, CICEE will read NPM’s package.json, if present.
    • Update the project’s name and description, if needed.
    • Update the current Major.Minor.Patch version.
    • Configure required environment variables and defaults. (Use the cicee meta cienv var commands to easily view and modify this configuration.)
  • Set up the continuous integration workflow.

Workflow Recipes

Validate Workflow Recipes

Compose Workflow Recipes

Some projects may require only a single recipe, e.g., .NET NuGet packages. Other projects may require multiple, e.g., a React SPA hosted by an ASP.NET application which is distributed as a Docker image.

Publish Workflow Recipes

Project Environment Initialization Recipes

Example Combined Recipes