How to force-run a periodic workflow?

[Jura]

I’m using CircleCI for periodic builds (3 a week), and it works great.

Except when there’s a issue and need to issue a fix. Since my CircleCI only triggers based on schedule, pushing the fix upstream doesn’t initiate a build.

If I manually choose ‘Rerun workflow’ from the dashboard, CircleCI unfortunately reuses the old commit (and not the most recent one).

So I likely need a job that triggers based on some condition. I thought about inspecting the commit message (as discussed here on the forum in other threads, like here). But I’m hopelessly stuck making that work.

If I don’t a .circleci.yml approach, let me know since that’s the quickest approach.

Here’s what I tried so far:

Use a bash variable

  implement_fix:
    docker:
    - image: cibuilds/hugo:0.54.0
    steps:
    - checkout
    - run:
        name: Check if commit includes [fix]
        command: |
          CMT=git log --format=oneline -n 1 $CIRCLE_SHA1
          echo $CMT

Output:

CMT=git log --format=oneline -n 1 $CIRCLE_SHA1
echo $CMT

/bin/bash: log: command not found
Exited with code 127

Perhaps a quoted variable?

  implement_fix:
    docker:
    - image: cibuilds/hugo:0.52
    steps:
    - checkout
    - run:
        name: Check if commit includes [fix]
        command: |
          CMT="git log --format=oneline -n 1 $CIRCLE_SHA1"
          echo $CMT

echo $CMT

git log --format=oneline -n 1 381a054044c20bbfb475087d547d089497fccd39

Using bash export, following the docs

https://circleci.com/docs/2.0/env-vars/

  implement_fix:
    docker:
    - image: cibuilds/hugo:0.54.0
    steps:
    - checkout
    - run:
        name: Check if commit includes [fix]
        command: |
          echo 'export CMT_MSG=git log --format=oneline -n 1 $CIRCLE_SHA1' >> $BASH_ENV
    - run:
        name: 'Commit message is:'
        command: echo $CMT_MSG

Woops, neither works:

/tmp/.bash_env--0-build: line 1: export: `--format=oneline': not a valid identifier
/tmp/.bash_env--0-build: line 1: export: `-n': not a valid identifier
/tmp/.bash_env--0-build: line 1: export: `1': not a valid identifier
/tmp/.bash_env--0-build: line 1: export: `6db97969c361b9858c028a57bd41507c8adedcd3': not a valid identifier
git

Using an environment variable, following this thread

  implement_fix:
    docker:
    - image: cibuilds/hugo:0.54.0
    environment:
    - GIT_COMMIT_DESC: git log --format=oneline -n 1 $CIRCLE_SHA1
    steps:
    - checkout
    - run:
        name: 'Commit message is:'
        command: echo $GIT_COMMIT_DESC

Output:

echo $GIT_COMMIT_DESC

git log --format=oneline -n 1 $CIRCLE_SHA1

Use when command, from the docs

https://circleci.com/docs/2.0/configuration-reference/#the-when-attribute

implement_fix:
docker:
    - image: cibuilds/hugo:0.54.0
environment:
    GIT_COMMIT_DESC: $(git log --format=oneline -n 1 $CIRCLE_SHA1)
steps:
    - checkout
    - run:
        name: "Set environment variable"
        command: echo $GIT_COMMIT_DESC
    - when:
        condition:
        steps:
        - run:
            name: "Successful match of condition"
            command: echo "Success!"

Doesn’t work for me; output is the following instead of the actual commit message:

$(git log --format=oneline -n 1 $CIRCLE_SHA1)

[Jura]

I made a bit ‘progress’ this afternoon. My CircleCI job is now:

implement_fix:
docker:
    - image: cibuilds/hugo:0.54.0
steps:
    - checkout
    - run:
        name: "Set environment variable"
        command: |
        echo "export COMMIT_MESSAGE=\"$(git log --format=oneline -n 1 $CIRCLE_SHA1)\"" >> $BASH_ENV
        echo ${COMMIT_MESSAGE}
        echo 'export CONTINUE_BUILD=\"$([[ ${COMMIT_MESSAGE} == *_"[fix]"_* ]])\"' >> $BASH_ENV
        echo ${CONTINUE_BUILD}
    - run:
        name: "test condition"
        command: |
        if [[ ${COMMIT_MESSAGE} == *_"[fix]"_* ]]; then
            echo "Found [fix] in commit message"
        else
            echo "did not found the prerequisite in the message"
        fi
    - when:
        condition: "$CONTINUE_BUILD"
        steps:
        - run:
            name: "Successful match of condition"
            command: echo "Success!"

The problem that I have is that my ‘test condition’ step shows the correct true/false value, but my when step runs every time. Which should of course not happen; only when there’s a true value.

What am I missing?

[halfer]

@Jura

So I likely need a job that triggers based on some condition

It wasn’t initially clear to me what you are after. It sounds like you want to be able to trigger a manual build after a scheduled build fails, and that your standard build on code push does something different.

If so, would a tag push be OK? I use that for a variety of non-standard build cases, and it works great.

[Jura]

A tag push sounds like a good idea! Thanks for thinking along.

Unfortunately, I can neither make this work. I studied the doc and came up with:

  deploy-fix:
    jobs:
      - build:
          filters:
            tags:
              only: /.*fix.*/

My idea was to have this task run whenever there’s a commit tagged with ‘fix’ in it. I haven’t used Java regex before, but did work with other languages’ regex and the Java doc is clear to me.

But this ‘deploy-fix’ task runs every time I push something to CircleCI. Without that commit even having a tag.

I’m not sure why because it’s literal the same example as the docs use. Except the regex is different, but that should only trigger against tag names I use, and I have to use one.

[halfer]

Yes, it is a bit fiddly. The docs do try to help on this point - I think you need an ignore statement as well. See my example here. It uses YAML references, but it parses to exactly the same thing as if the filters were inline.

[Jura]

Thanks, I got it working from your example!

Here’s the code I end up using for reference and others in the future:

  deploy-fix:
    jobs:
      - build:
          filters:
            tags:
              only: /.*fix.*/
            branches:
              ignore: /.*/

Thanks again and have a nice weekend.