Set environment for all pipelines from within .drone.yml?

Drone Support
1

Is it possible to do something like shown below?

environment:
  - HOME=/drone
pipeline:
  restore-cache:
    image: drillster/drone-volume-cache
    restore: true
    mount:
      - ~/.npm
      - ./node_modules
    volumes:
      - /tmp/cache:/cache

  install:
    image: node
    commands:
      - npm install --quiet  # should re-use cache from .npm

It’s advantageous to do sue due to drone exec. I want my code to my testable on PC before pushing to a remote repo.

2

to clarify, you are looking for a way to globally set environment variables for all pipeline steps in one place? It is not possible. You would have to set the environment variables for each step.

-environment:
-  - HOME=/drone
pipeline:
  restore-cache:
    image: drillster/drone-volume-cache
    restore: true
    mount:
+     - /drone/.npm
      - ./node_modules
    volumes:
      - /tmp/cache:/cache

  install:
    image: node
    commands:
+     - export HOME=/drone
      - npm install --quiet  # should re-use cache from .npm
3

alternatively, you could create a .npmrc file at the start of your build, which I believe can be used to override various configurations and directory locations. Note that I am not terribly familiar with the syntax, but I am guessing it could look something like this:

pipeline:
  config:
    image: node
    commands:
      - |
        echo "cache = /drone/.npm" > .npmrc
  install:
    image: node
    commands:
      - npm install

Because the workspace persists between build steps, the npmrc would be available to subsequent steps so that you would not have to repetitively set multiple environment variables.

If you want to run drone exec locally and do not want the npmrc to be written, you can skip the the pipeline step during local execution:

pipeline:
  config:
    image: node
    commands:
      - |
        echo "cache = /drone/.npm" > .npmrc
+   when:
+     local: false
  install:
    image: node
    commands:
      - npm install

… just some food for thought …

4

Thank you. I appreciate your help.

Is such a feature something you would accept a PR for?

5

The drone yaml aims to be a superset of docker-compose. If there is a construct in the docker-compose file specification [1] that allows for global environment variables, it is something we would implement in the drone yaml.

If such a construct does not exist in the docker-compose specification it is probably not something we would add to drone at this time.

[1] https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/

6

Makes sense, this is probably the closest https://docs.docker.com/compose/env-file/

7

The .env file is probably not the right fit since it does not automatically pass environment variables to the container. You would need to use substitution, which means you would effectively be setting per-step environment variables, but with substitution syntax (so not really an improvement over what we have today).

Environment variables defined in the .env file are not automatically visible inside containers. To set container-applicable environment variables, follow the guidelines in the topic Environment variables in Compose, which describes how to pass shell environment variables through to containers, define environment variables in Compose files, and more.

If you ok with setting a global variable for all pipelines and all repositories you can use this:
http://docs.drone.io/configure-global-environment/

I believe the configuration would look something like this:

- name: npm_config_cache
  value: /drone/.npm
8

Yes I was wondering about this Enterprise feature. We’re still evaluating Drone but the Enterprise as it is now is too expensive. I’d like to discuss the pricing with you after we evaluate the solution. Would love to get some sort of official support plan at a price to match our current Codeship spending and ditch it altogether.

10

maybe you can use matrix to do the trick

matrix:
  HOME:
    - /drone
pipeline:
  restore-cache:
    image: drillster/drone-volume-cache
    restore: true
    mount:
      - ${HOME}/.npm
      - ./node_modules
    volumes:
      - /tmp/cache:/cache

  install:
    image: node
    commands:
      - export HOME=${HOME}
      - npm install --quiet  # should re-use cache from .npm
1 Like
11

You can also generate a file of environment variables in your first step, and source it from subsequent steps.

1 Like
12

The drone yaml aims to be a superset of docker-compose.

Wouldn’t adding the possibility to define a global environment section satisfy this criterion?

I mean, having pipeline itself is a (useful) extension of that syntax, why no add environment?

I’ve used travis before and I’ve got to admit I really miss this feature.

13

You can use yaml anchors for this. Alternatively when 0.9 is released you will be able to take advantage of jsonnet support, which provides more advanced scripting options.

1 Like