Configuring CircleCI
This document is a reference for the CircleCI 2.x configuration keys that are used in the .circleci/config.yml
file.
You can see a complete config.yml
in our full example.
setup
version
orbs
(requires version: 2.1)commands
(requires version: 2.1)parameters
(requires version: 2.1)executors
(requires version: 2.1)-
jobs
-
<
job_name
>environment
parallelism
parameters
docker
/machine
/macos
(executor)docker
-
machine
macos
branches
– DEPRECATED-
resource_class
-
steps
circleci_ip_ranges
-
<
-
workflows
- Logic statements
- Example full configuration
- See also
setup
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
setup | N | Boolean | Designates the config.yaml for use of CircleCI’s dynamic configuration feature. |
The setup
field enables you to conditionally trigger configurations from outside the primary .circleci
parent directory, update pipeline parameters, or generate customized configurations.
version
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
version | Y | String |
2 , 2.0 , or 2.1 See the Reusing Config doc for an overview of 2.1 keys available to simplify your .circleci/config.yml file, reuse, and parameterized jobs. |
The version
field is intended to be used in order to issue warnings for deprecation or breaking changes.
orbs
(requires version: 2.1)
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
orbs | N | Map | A map of user-selected names to either: orb references (strings) or orb definitions (maps). Orb definitions must be the orb-relevant subset of 2.1 config. See the Creating Orbs documentation for details. |
executors | N | Map | A map of strings to executor definitions. See the Executors section below. |
commands | N | Map | A map of command names to command definitions. See the Commands section below. |
The following example calls an orb named hello-build
that exists in the certified circleci
namespace.
version: 2.1
orbs:
hello: circleci/hello-build@0.0.5
workflows:
"Hello Workflow":
jobs:
- hello/hello-build
In the above example, hello
is considered the orbs reference; whereas circleci/hello-build@0.0.5
is the fully-qualified orb reference. You can learn more about orbs here. Documentation is available for Using Orbs and Authoring Orbs. Public orbs are listed in the Orb Registry.
commands
(requires version: 2.1)
A command definition defines a sequence of steps as a map to be executed in a job, enabling you to reuse a single command definition across multiple jobs. For more information see the Reusable Config Reference Guide.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
steps | Y | Sequence | A sequence of steps run inside the calling job of the command. |
parameters | N | Map | A map of parameter keys. See the Parameter Syntax section of the Reusing Config document for details. |
description | N | String | A string that describes the purpose of the command. |
Example:
commands:
sayhello:
description: "A very simple command for demonstration purposes"
parameters:
to:
type: string
default: "Hello World"
steps:
- run: echo << parameters.to >>
parameters
(requires version: 2.1)
Pipeline parameters declared for use in the configuration. See Pipeline Values and Parameters for usage details.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
parameters | N | Map | A map of parameter keys. Supports string , boolean , integer and enum types. See Parameter Syntax for details. |
executors
(requires version: 2.1)
Executors define the environment in which the steps of a job will be run, allowing you to reuse a single executor definition across multiple jobs.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
docker | Y (1) | List | Options for docker executor |
resource_class | N | String | Amount of CPU and RAM allocated to each container in a job. |
machine | Y (1) | Map | Options for machine executor |
macos | Y (1) | Map | Options for macOS executor |
windows | Y (1) | Map | Windows executor currently working with orbs. Check out the orb. |
shell | N | String | Shell to use for execution command in all steps. Can be overridden by shell in each step (default: See Default Shell Options) |
working_directory | N | String | In which directory to run the steps. Will be interpreted as an absolute path. |
environment | N | Map | A map of environment variable names and values. |
(1) One executor type should be specified per job. If more than one is set you will receive an error.
Example:
version: 2.1
executors:
my-executor:
docker:
- image: cimg/ruby:3.0.3-browsers
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
jobs:
my-job:
executor: my-executor
steps:
- run: echo outside the executor
See the Using Parameters in Executors section of the Reusing Config document for examples of parameterized executors.
jobs
A Workflow is comprised of one or more uniquely named jobs. Jobs are specified in the jobs
map, see Sample config.yml for two examples of a job
map. The name of the job is the key in the map, and the value is a map describing the job.
Note: Jobs have a maximum runtime of 1 (Free), 3 (Performance), or 5 (Scale) hours depending on pricing plan. If your jobs are timing out, consider a larger resource class and/or parallelism. Additionally, you can upgrade your pricing plan or run some of your jobs concurrently using workflows.
<job_name
>
Each job consists of the job’s name as a key and a map as a value. A name should be case insensitive unique within a current jobs
list. The value map has the following attributes:
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
docker | Y (1) | List | Options for docker executor |
machine | Y (1) | Map | Options for machine executor |
macos | Y (1) | Map | Options for macOS executor |
shell | N | String | Shell to use for execution command in all steps. Can be overridden by shell in each step (default: See Default Shell Options) |
parameters | N | Map |
Parameters for making a job explicitly configurable in a workflow . |
steps | Y | List | A list of steps to be performed |
working_directory | N | String | In which directory to run the steps. Will be interpreted as an absolute path. Default: ~/project (where project is a literal string, not the name of your specific project). Processes run during the job can use the $CIRCLE_WORKING_DIRECTORY environment variable to refer to this directory. Note: Paths written in your YAML configuration file will not be expanded; if your store_test_results.path is $CIRCLE_WORKING_DIRECTORY/tests , then CircleCI will attempt to store the test subdirectory of the directory literally named $CIRCLE_WORKING_DIRECTORY , dollar sign $ and all. working_directory will be created automatically if it doesn’t exist. |
parallelism | N | Integer | Number of parallel instances of this job to run (default: 1) |
environment | N | Map | A map of environment variable names and values. |
branches | N | Map | A map defining rules to allow/block execution of specific branches for a single job that is not in a workflow or a 2.1 config (default: all allowed). See Workflows for configuring branch execution for jobs in a workflow or 2.1 config. |
resource_class | N | String | Amount of CPU and RAM allocated to each container in a job. |
(1) One executor type should be specified per job. If more than one is set you will receive an error.
environment
A map of environment variable names and values. For more information on defining and using environment variables, and the order of precedence governing the various ways they can be set, see the Using Environment Variables page.
parallelism
If parallelism
is set to N > 1, then N independent executors will be set up and each will run the steps of that job in parallel. This feature is used to optimize your test steps. Split your test suite, using the CircleCI CLI, across parallel containers so the job will complete in a shorter time. Certain parallelism-aware steps can opt out of the parallelism and only run on a single executor. Learn more on the Running Tests in Parallel page.
Example:
jobs:
build:
docker:
- image: buildpack-deps:trusty
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
environment:
FOO: bar
parallelism: 3
resource_class: large
working_directory: ~/my-app
steps:
- run: go test -v $(go list ./... | circleci tests split)
parameters
parameters
can be used when calling a job
in a workflow
.
Reserved parameter-names:
name
requires
context
type
filters
-
matrix
See Parameter Syntax for definition details.
docker
/ machine
/ macos
(executor)
CircleCI offers several execution environments in which to run your jobs. To specify an execution environment choose an executor, then specify and image and a resource class. An executor defines the underlying technology, environment and operating system in which to run a job.
Set up your jobs to run using the docker
(Linux), machine
(LinuxVM, Windows, GPU, Arm), or macos
executor, then specify an image with the tools and packages you need, and a resource class.
Learn more about execution environments and executors in the Introduction to Execution Environments.
docker
Configured by docker
key which takes a list of maps:
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
image | Y | String | The name of a custom docker image to use. The first image listed under a job defines the job’s own primary container image where all steps will run. |
name | N | String |
name defines the name for reaching the secondary service containers. By default, all services are exposed directly on localhost . The field is appropriate if you would rather have a different host name instead of localhost, for example, if you are starting multiple versions of the same service. |
entrypoint | N | String or List | The command used as executable when launching the container. entrypoint overrides the image’s ENTRYPOINT . |
command | N | String or List | The command used as pid 1 (or args for entrypoint) when launching the container. command overrides the image’s COMMAND . It will be used as arguments to the image ENTRYPOINT if it has one, or as the executable if the image has no ENTRYPOINT . |
user | N | String | Which user to run commands as within the Docker container |
environment | N | Map | A map of environment variable names and values. The environment settings apply to the entrypoint/command run by the docker container, not the job steps. |
auth | N | Map | Authentication for registries using standard docker login credentials |
aws_auth | N | Map | Authentication for AWS Elastic Container Registry (ECR) |
For a primary container (the first container in the list) if neither command
nor entrypoint
is specified in the config, then any ENTRYPOINT
and COMMAND
in the image are ignored. This is because the primary container is typically used only for running the steps
and not for its ENTRYPOINT
, and an ENTRYPOINT
may consume significant resources or exit prematurely. A custom image may disable this behavior and force the ENTRYPOINT
to run.
You can specify image versions using tags or digest. You can use any public images from any public Docker registry (defaults to Docker Hub). Learn more about specifying images on the Using the Docker Execution Environment page.
Some registries, Docker Hub, for example, may rate limit anonymous docker pulls. It is recommended you authenticate in such cases to pull private and public images. The username and password can be specified in the auth
field. See Using Docker Authenticated Pulls for details.
Example:
jobs:
build:
docker:
- image: buildpack-deps:trusty # primary container
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
environment:
ENV: CI
- image: mongo:2.6.8
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
command: [--smallfiles]
- image: postgres:14.2
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
environment:
POSTGRES_USER: user
- image: redis@sha256:54057dd7e125ca41afe526a877e8bd35ec2cdd33b9217e022ed37bdcf7d09673
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
- image: acme-private/private-image:321
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
Using an image hosted on AWS ECR requires authentication using AWS credentials. By default, CircleCI uses the AWS credentials you provide by setting the AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
project environment variables. It is also possible to set the credentials by using the aws_auth
field as in the following example:
jobs:
build:
docker:
- image: account-id.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/org/repo:0.1
aws_auth:
aws_access_key_id: AKIAQWERVA # can specify string literal values
aws_secret_access_key: $ECR_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY # or project UI envar reference
machine
The machine executor is configured using the machine
key, which takes a map:
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
image | Y | String | The virtual machine image to use. View available images. Note: This key is not supported for Linux VMs on installations of CircleCI server. For information about customizing machine executor images on CircleCI installed on your servers, see our VM Service documentation. |
docker_layer_caching | N | Boolean | Set this to true to enable Docker Layer Caching. |
Example:
version: 2.1
jobs:
build:
machine:
image: ubuntu-2004:202010-01
steps:
- checkout
- run:
name: "Testing"
command: echo "Hi"
Available Linux machine
images
Specifying an image in your config file is strongly recommended. CircleCI supports multiple Linux machine images that can be specified in the image
field. For a full list of supported images, refer to the Ubuntu 20.04 page in the Developer Hub. More information on what software is available in each image can be found in our Discuss forum.
-
ubuntu-2204:2022.04.1
- Ubuntu 22.04, Docker v20.10.14, Docker Compose v2.4.1, -
ubuntu-2004:2022.04.1
- Ubuntu 20.04, Docker v20.10.14, Docker Compose v2.4.1, -
ubuntu-2004:202201-02
- Ubuntu 20.04, Docker v20.10.12, Docker Compose v1.29.2, Google Cloud SDK updates -
ubuntu-2004:202201-01
- Ubuntu 20.04, Docker v20.10.12, Docker Compose v1.29.2 -
ubuntu-2004:202111-02
- Ubuntu 20.04, Docker v20.10.11, Docker Compose v1.29.2, log4j updates -
ubuntu-2004:202111-01
- Ubuntu 20.04, Docker v20.10.11, Docker Compose v1.29.2, -
ubuntu-2004:202107-02
- Ubuntu 20.04, Docker v20.10.7, Docker Compose v1.29.2, -
ubuntu-2004:202104-01
- Ubuntu 20.04, Docker v20.10.6, Docker Compose v1.29.1, -
ubuntu-2004:202101-01
- Ubuntu 20.04, Docker v20.10.2, Docker Compose v1.28.2, -
ubuntu-2004:202010-01
- Ubuntu 20.04, Docker v19.03.13, Docker Compose v1.27.4,ubuntu-2004:202008-01
is an alias
Note: Ubuntu 16.04 has reached the end of its LTS window as of April 2021 and is no longer supported by Canonical. As a result, ubuntu-1604:202104-01
is the final Ubuntu 16.04 image released by CircleCI.
Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04 machine images were deprecated and removed permanently May 31, 2022. If you are still using these images, make sure to migrate from 14.04 or 16.04 as soon as possible. For further questions, you may contact CircleCI support, or your account representative.
The machine executor supports Docker Layer Caching which is useful when you are building Docker images during your job or Workflow.
Available Linux GPU machine
images
When using the Linux GPU executor, the available images are:
-
ubuntu-2004-cuda-11.4:202110-01
- CUDA v11.4.2, Docker v20.10.7, nvidia-container-toolkit v1.5.1-1 -
ubuntu-2004-cuda-11.2:202103-01
- CUDA v11.2.1, Docker v20.10.5, nvidia-container-toolkit v1.4.2-1 -
ubuntu-1604-cuda-11.1:202012-01
- CUDA v11.1, Docker v19.03.13, nvidia-container-toolkit v1.4.0-1 -
ubuntu-1604-cuda-10.2:202012-01
- CUDA v10.2, Docker v19.03.13, nvidia-container-toolkit v1.3.0-1 -
ubuntu-1604-cuda-10.1:201909-23
- CUDA v10.1, Docker v19.03.0-ce, nvidia-docker v2.2.2 -
ubuntu-1604-cuda-9.2:201909-23
- CUDA v9.2, Docker v19.03.0-ce, nvidia-docker v2.2.2
Available Windows machine
images
Specifying an image in your config file is strongly recommended. CircleCI supports multiple Windows machine images that can be specified in the image
field.
For a full list of supported images, refer to one of the following:
More information on what software is available in each image can be found in our Discuss forum.
Alternatively, use the Windows orb to manage your Windows execution environment. For examples, see the Using the Windows Execution Environment page.
Available Windows GPU machine
image
When using the Windows GPU executor, the available image is:
-
windows-server-2019-nvidia:stable
- Windows Server 2019, CUDA 10.1. This image is the default.
Example
version: 2.1
jobs:
build:
machine:
image: windows-server-2019-nvidia:stable
macos
CircleCI supports running jobs on macOS, to allow you to build, test, and deploy apps for macOS, iOS, tvOS and watchOS. To run a job in a macOS virtual machine, add the macos
key to the top-level configuration for your job and specify the version of Xcode you would like to use.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
xcode | Y | String | The version of Xcode that is installed on the virtual machine, see the Supported Xcode Versions section of the Testing iOS document for the complete list. |
Example: Use a macOS virtual machine with Xcode version 12.5.1:
jobs:
build:
macos:
xcode: "12.5.1"
branches
– DEPRECATED
This key is deprecated. Use workflows filtering to control which jobs run for which branches.
resource_class
The resource_class
feature allows configuring CPU and RAM resources for each job. Resource classes are available for execution environment, as described in the tables below.
We implement soft concurrency limits for each resource class to ensure our system remains stable for all customers. If you are on a Performance or custom plan and experience queuing for certain resource classes, it’s possible you are hitting these limits. Contact CircleCI support to request a raise on these limits for your account.
Note: If you do not specify a resource class, CircleCI will use a default value that is subject to change. It is best practice to specify a resource class as opposed to relying on a default.
Note: Java, Erlang and any other languages that introspect the /proc
directory for information about CPU count may require additional configuration to prevent them from slowing down when using the CircleCI resource class feature. Programs with this issue may request 32 CPU cores and run slower than they would when requesting one core. Users of languages with this issue should pin their CPU count to their guaranteed CPU resources.
Note: If you want to confirm how much memory you have been allocated, you can check the cgroup memory hierarchy limit with grep hierarchical_memory_limit /sys/fs/cgroup/memory/memory.stat
.
For self-hosted installations of CircleCI Server contact your system administrator for a list of available resource classes.
Self-hosted runner
Use the resource_class
key to configure a self-hosted runner instance.
For example:
jobs:
job_name:
machine: true
resource_class: <my-namespace>/<my-runner>
Docker execution environment
Class | vCPUs | RAM |
---|---|---|
small | 1 | 2GB |
medium | 2 | 4GB |
medium+ | 3 | 6GB |
large | 4 | 8GB |
xlarge | 8 | 16GB |
2xlarge(2) | 16 | 32GB |
2xlarge+(2) | 20 | 40GB |
Example:
jobs:
build:
docker:
- image: buildpack-deps:trusty
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
resource_class: xlarge
steps:
... // other config
LinuxVM execution environment
Class | vCPUs | RAM | Disk Size |
---|---|---|---|
medium | 2 | 7.5 GB | 100GB |
large | 4 | 15 GB | 100GB |
xlarge | 8 | 32 GB | 100GB |
2xlarge | 16 | 64 GB | 100GB |
Example:
jobs:
build:
machine:
image: ubuntu-2004:202010-01 # recommended linux image
resource_class: large
steps:
... // other config
You may also use the machine
class to configure a runner instance:
jobs:
job_name:
machine: true
resource_class: my-namespace/my-runner
macOS execution environment
Class | vCPUs | RAM |
---|---|---|
medium | 4 @ 2.7 GHz | 8GB |
macos.x86.medium.gen2 | 4 @ 3.2 GHz | 8GB |
large | 8 @ 2.7 GHz | 16GB |
macos.x86.metal.gen1 | 12 @ 3.2 GHz | 32GB |
Note: The macos.x86.metal.gen1
resource requires a minimum 24-hour lease. See the Dedicated Host for macOS page to learn more about this resource class.
Note: The large
resource class is only available for customers with an annual contract. Open a support ticket if you would like to learn more about our annual plans.
Example
jobs:
build:
macos:
xcode: "12.5.1"
resource_class: large
steps:
... // other config
Windows execution environment
Class | vCPUs | RAM | Disk Size |
---|---|---|---|
medium (default) | 4 | 15GB | 200 GB |
large | 8 | 30GB | 200 GB |
xlarge | 16 | 60GB | 200 GB |
2xlarge | 32 | 128GB | 200 GB |
Example:
version: 2.1 # Use version 2.1 to enable orb usage.
orbs:
win: circleci/windows@4.1.1 # The Windows orb give you everything you need to start using the Windows executor.
jobs:
build: # name of your job
executor:
name: win/default # executor type
size: medium # can be medium, large, xlarge, 2xlarge
steps:
# Commands are run in a Windows virtual machine environment
- checkout
- run: Write-Host 'Hello, Windows'
version: 2
jobs:
build: # name of your job
machine:
image: 'windows-server-2022-gui:current'
shell: 'powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass'
resource_class: windows.medium # can be medium, large, xlarge, 2xlarge
steps:
# Commands are run in a Windows virtual machine environment
- checkout
- run: Write-Host 'Hello, Windows'
version: 2.1
jobs:
build: # name of your job
machine:
image: windows-default
resource_class: windows.medium # can be medium, large, xlarge, 2xlarge
steps:
# Commands are run in a Windows virtual machine environment
- checkout
- run: Write-Host 'Hello, Windows'
version: 2
jobs:
build: # name of your job
machine:
image: windows-default
resource_class: windows.medium # can be medium, large, xlarge, 2xlarge
steps:
# Commands are run in a Windows virtual machine environment
- checkout
- run: Write-Host 'Hello, Windows'
GPU execution environment (Linux)
Class | vCPUs | RAM | GPUs | GPU model | GPU Memory (GiB) | Disk Size (GiB) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
gpu.nvidia.small | 4 | 15 | 1 | Nvidia Tesla P4 | 8 | 300 |
gpu.nvidia.medium | 8 | 30 | 1 | Nvidia Tesla T4 | 16 | 300 |
gpu.nvidia.large | 8 | 30 | 1 | Nvidia Tesla V100 | 16 | 300 |
Note: These resources require review by our support team. Open a support ticket if you would like to request access.
Example:
version: 2.1
jobs:
build:
machine:
image: ubuntu-1604-cuda-10.1:201909-23
resource_class: gpu.nvidia.small
steps:
- run: nvidia-smi
- run: docker run --gpus all nvidia/cuda:9.0-base nvidia-smi
See the Available Linux GPU images section for the full list of available images.
GPU execution-environment (Windows)
Class | vCPUs | RAM | GPUs | GPU model | GPU Memory (GiB) | Disk Size (GiB) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
windows.gpu.nvidia.medium | 16 | 60 | 1 | Nvidia Tesla T4 | 16 | 200 |
Note: These resources require review by our support team. Open a support ticket if you would like to request access.
Example:
version: 2.1
orbs:
win: circleci/windows@4.1.1
jobs:
build:
executor: win/gpu-nvidia
steps:
- checkout
- run: '&"C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVSMI\nvidia-smi.exe"'
(2) This resource requires review by our support team. Open a support ticket if you would like to request access.
Arm execution-environment (LinuxVM)
Class | vCPUs | RAM | Disk Size |
---|---|---|---|
arm.medium (default) | 2 | 8GB | 100 GB |
arm.large | 4 | 16GB | 100 GB |
arm.xlarge | 8 | 32GB | 100 GB |
arm.2xlarge | 16 | 64GB | 100 GB |
steps
The steps
setting in a job should be a list of single key/value pairs, the key of which indicates the step type. The value may be either a configuration map or a string (depending on what that type of step requires). For example, using a map:
jobs:
build:
working_directory: ~/canary-python
environment:
FOO: bar
steps:
- run:
name: Running tests
command: make test
Here run
is a step type. The name
attribute is used by the UI for display purposes. The command
attribute is specific for run
step and defines command to execute.
Some steps may implement a shorthand semantic. For example, run
may be also be called like this:
jobs:
build:
steps:
- run: make test
In its short form, the run
step allows us to directly specify which command
to execute as a string value. In this case step itself provides default suitable values for other attributes (name
here will have the same value as command
, for example).
Another shorthand, which is possible for some steps, is to simply use the step name as a string instead of a key/value pair:
jobs:
build:
steps:
- checkout
In this case, the checkout
step will checkout project source code into the job’s working_directory
.
In general all steps can be described as:
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
<step_type> | Y | Map or String | A configuration map for the step or some string whose semantics are defined by the step. |
Each built-in step is described in detail below.
run
Used for invoking all command-line programs, taking either a map of configuration values, or, when called in its short-form, a string that will be used as both the command
and name
. Run commands are executed using non-login shells by default, so you must explicitly source any dotfiles as part of the command.
Note: the run
step replaces the deprecated deploy
step. If your job has a parallelism of 1, the deprecated deploy
step can be swapped out directly for the run
step. If your job has parallelism >1, see Migration from deploy
to run
.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
command | Y | String | Command to run via the shell |
name | N | String | Title of the step to be shown in the CircleCI UI (default: full command ) |
shell | N | String | Shell to use for execution command (default: See Default Shell Options) |
environment | N | Map | Additional environmental variables, locally scoped to command |
background | N | Boolean | Whether or not this step should run in the background (default: false) |
working_directory | N | String | In which directory to run this step. Will be interpreted relative to the working_directory of the job). (default: . ) |
no_output_timeout | N | String | Elapsed time the command can run without output. The string is a decimal with unit suffix, such as “20m”, “1.25h”, “5s”. The default is 10 minutes and the maximum is governed by the maximum time a job is allowed to run. |
when | N | String |
Specify when to enable or disable the step. Takes the following values: always , on_success , on_fail (default: on_success ) |
Each run
declaration represents a new shell. It is possible to specify a multi-line command
, each line of which will be run in the same shell:
- run:
command: |
echo Running test
mkdir -p /tmp/test-results
make test
You can also configure commands to run in the background if you don’t want to wait for the step to complete before moving on to subsequent run steps.
Default shell options
For jobs that run on Linux, the default value of the shell
option is /bin/bash -eo pipefail
if /bin/bash
is present in the build container. Otherwise it is /bin/sh -eo pipefail
. The default shell is not a login shell (--login
or -l
are not specified). Hence, the shell will not source your ~/.bash_profile
, ~/.bash_login
, ~/.profile
files.
For jobs that run on macOS, the default shell is /bin/bash --login -eo pipefail
. The shell is a non-interactive login shell. The shell will execute /etc/profile/
followed by ~/.bash_profile
before every step.
For more information about which files are executed when bash is invocated, see the INVOCATION
section of the bash
manpage.
Descriptions of the -eo pipefail
options are provided below.
-e
Exit immediately if a pipeline (which may consist of a single simple command), a subshell command enclosed in parentheses, or one of the commands executed as part of a command list enclosed by braces exits with a non-zero status.
So if in the previous example mkdir
failed to create a directory and returned a non-zero status, then command execution would be terminated, and the whole step would be marked as failed. If you desire the opposite behaviour, you need to add set +e
in your command
or override the default shell
in your configuration map of run
. For example:
- run:
command: |
echo Running test
set +e
mkdir -p /tmp/test-results
make test
- run:
shell: /bin/sh
command: |
echo Running test
mkdir -p /tmp/test-results
make test
-o pipefail
If pipefail is enabled, the pipeline’s return status is the value of the last (rightmost) command to exit with a non-zero status, or zero if all commands exit successfully. The shell waits for all commands in the pipeline to terminate before returning a value.
For example:
- run: make test | tee test-output.log
If make test
fails, the -o pipefail
option will cause the whole step to fail. Without -o pipefail
, the step will always run successfully because the result of the whole pipeline is determined by the last command (tee test-output.log
), which will always return a zero status.
Note that even if make test
fails the rest of pipeline will be executed.
If you want to avoid this behaviour, you can specify set +o pipefail
in the command or override the whole shell
(see example above).
In general, we recommend using the default options (-eo pipefail
) because they show errors in intermediate commands and simplify debugging job failures. For convenience, the UI displays the used shell and all active options for each run
step.
For more information, see the Using Shell Scripts document.
Background commands
The background
attribute enables you to configure commands to run in the background. Job execution will immediately proceed to the next step rather than waiting for return of a command with the background
attribute set to true
. The following example shows the config for running the X virtual framebuffer in the background which is commonly required to run Selenium tests:
- run:
name: Running X virtual framebuffer
command: Xvfb :99 -screen 0 1280x1024x24
background: true
- run: make test
Shorthand syntax
run
has a very convenient shorthand syntax:
- run: make test
# shorthanded command can also have multiple lines
- run: |
mkdir -p /tmp/test-results
make test
In this case, command
and name
become the string value of run
, and the rest of the config map for that run
have their default values.
The when
Attribute
By default, CircleCI will execute job steps one at a time, in the order that they are defined in config.yml
, until a step fails (returns a non-zero exit code). After a command fails, no further job steps will be executed.
Adding the when
attribute to a job step allows you to override this default behaviour, and selectively run or skip steps depending on the status of the job.
The default value of on_success
means that the step will run only if all of the previous steps have been successful (returned exit code 0).
A value of always
means that the step will run regardless of the exit status of previous steps. This is useful if you have a task that you want to run regardless of whether the previous steps are successful or not. For example, you might have a job step that needs to upload logs or code-coverage data somewhere.
A value of on_fail
means that the step will run only if one of the preceding steps has failed (returns a non-zero exit code). It is common to use on_fail
if you want to store some diagnostic data to help debug test failures, or to run custom notifications about the failure, such as sending emails or triggering alerts in chatrooms.
Note: Some steps, such as store_artifacts
and store_test_results
will always run, even if a step has failed (returned a non-zero exit code) previously. The when
attribute, store_artifacts
and store_test_results
are not run if the job has been killed by a cancel request or has reached the runtime timeout limit.
- run:
name: Upload CodeCov.io Data
command: bash <(curl -s https://codecov.io/bash) -F unittests
when: always # Uploads code coverage results, pass or fail
Ending a job from within a step
A job can exit without failing by using run: circleci-agent step halt
. This can be useful in situations where jobs need to conditionally execute.
Here is an example where halt
is used to avoid running a job on the develop
branch:
run: |
if [ "$CIRCLE_BRANCH" = "develop" ]; then
circleci-agent step halt
fi
Example:
steps:
- run:
name: Testing application
command: make test
shell: /bin/bash
working_directory: ~/my-app
no_output_timeout: 30m
environment:
FOO: bar
- run: echo 127.0.0.1 devhost | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts
- run: |
sudo -u root createuser -h localhost --superuser ubuntu &&
sudo createdb -h localhost test_db
- run:
name: Upload Failed Tests
command: curl --data fail_tests.log http://example.com/error_logs
when: on_fail
The when
Step (requires version: 2.1)
A conditional step consists of a step with the key when
or unless
. Under the when
key are the subkeys condition
and steps
. The purpose of the when
step is customizing commands and job configuration to run on custom conditions (determined at config-compile time) that are checked before a workflow runs. See the Conditional Steps section of the Reusing Config document for more details.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
condition | Y | Logic | A logic statement |
steps | Y | Sequence | A list of steps to execute when the condition is true |
Example:
version: 2.1
jobs: # conditional steps may also be defined in `commands:`
job_with_optional_custom_checkout:
parameters:
custom_checkout:
type: string
default: ""
machine:
image: ubuntu-2004:202107-02
steps:
- when:
condition: <<parameters.custom_checkout>>
steps:
- run: echo "my custom checkout"
- unless:
condition: <<parameters.custom_checkout>>
steps:
- checkout
workflows:
build-test-deploy:
jobs:
- job_with_optional_custom_checkout:
custom_checkout: "any non-empty string is truthy"
- job_with_optional_custom_checkout
checkout
A special step used to check out source code to the configured path
(defaults to the working_directory
). The reason this is a special step is because it is more of a helper function designed to make checking out code easy for you. If you require doing git over HTTPS you should not use this step as it configures git to checkout over ssh.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
path | N | String | Checkout directory. Will be interpreted relative to the working_directory of the job). (default: . ) |
If path
already exists and is:
- a git repo - step will not clone whole repo, instead will fetch origin
- NOT a git repo - step will fail.
In the case of checkout
, the step type is just a string with no additional attributes:
- checkout
Note: CircleCI does not check out submodules. If your project requires submodules, add run
steps with appropriate commands as shown in the following example:
- checkout
- run: git submodule sync
- run: git submodule update --init
This command will automatically add the required authenticity keys for interacting with GitHub and Bitbucket over SSH, which is detailed further in our integration guide – this guide will also be helpful if you wish to implement a custom checkout command.
Note: The checkout
step will configure Git to skip automatic garbage collection. If you are caching your .git
directory with restore_cache and would like to use garbage collection to reduce its size, you may wish to use a run step with command git gc
before doing so.
setup_remote_docker
Creates a remote Docker environment configured to execute Docker commands. See Running Docker Commands for details.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
docker_layer_caching | N | boolean | Set this to true to enable Docker Layer Caching in the Remote Docker Environment (default: false ) |
version | N | String | Version string of Docker you would like to use (default: 17.09.0-ce ). View the list of supported docker versions here. |
Notes:
-
setup_remote_docker
is not compatible with themachine
executor. See Docker Layer Caching in Machine Executor for information on how to enable DLC with themachine
executor. - The
version
key is not currently supported on CircleCI installed in your private cloud or datacenter. Contact your system administrator for information about the Docker version installed in your remote Docker environment.
save_cache
Generates and stores a cache of a file or directory of files such as dependencies or source code in our object storage. Later jobs can restore this cache. Learn more on the Caching Dependencies page.
Cache retention can be customized on the CircleCI web app by navigating to Plan > Usage Controls.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
paths | Y | List | List of directories which should be added to the cache |
key | Y | String | Unique identifier for this cache |
name | N | String | Title of the step to be shown in the CircleCI UI (default: “Saving Cache”) |
when | N | String |
Specify when to enable or disable the step. Takes the following values: always , on_success , on_fail (default: on_success ) |
The cache for a specific key
is immutable and cannot be changed once written.
Note: If the cache for the given key
already exists it will not be modified, and job execution will proceed to the next step.
When storing a new cache, the key
value may contain special templated values for your convenience:
Template | Description |
---|---|
{{ .Branch }} | The VCS branch currently being built. |
{{ .BuildNum }} | The CircleCI build number for this build. |
{{ .Revision }} | The VCS revision currently being built. |
{{ .CheckoutKey }} | The SSH key used to checkout the repo. |
{{ .Environment.variableName }} | The environment variable variableName (supports any environment variable exported by CircleCI or added to a specific Context—not any arbitrary environment variable). |
{{ checksum "filename" }} | A base64 encoded SHA256 hash of the given filename’s contents. This should be a file committed in your repo and may also be referenced as a path that is absolute or relative from the current working directory. Good candidates are dependency manifests, such as package-lock.json , pom.xml or project.clj . It’s important that this file does not change between restore_cache and save_cache , otherwise the cache will be saved under a cache key different than the one used at restore_cache time. |
{{ epoch }} | The current time in seconds since the unix epoch. |
{{ arch }} | The OS and CPU information. Useful when caching compiled binaries that depend on OS and CPU architecture, for example, darwin amd64 versus linux i386/32-bit . |
During step execution, the templates above will be replaced by runtime values and use the resultant string as the key
.
Template examples:
-
myapp-{{ checksum "package-lock.json" }}
- cache will be regenerated every time something is changed inpackage-lock.json
file, different branches of this project will generate the same cache key. -
myapp-{{ .Branch }}-{{ checksum "package-lock.json" }}
- same as the previous one, but each branch will generate separate cache -
myapp-{{ epoch }}
- every run of a job will generate a separate cache
While choosing suitable templates for your cache key
, keep in mind that cache saving is not a free operation, because it will take some time to upload the cache to our storage. So it make sense to have a key
that generates a new cache only if something actually changed and avoid generating a new one every run of a job.
Tip: Given the immutability of caches, it might be helpful to start all your cache keys with a version prefix v1-...
. That way you will be able to regenerate all your caches just by incrementing the version in this prefix.
Example:
- save_cache:
key: v1-myapp-{{ arch }}-{{ checksum "project.clj" }}
paths:
- /home/ubuntu/.m2
Notes:
-
Wildcards are not currently supported in
save_cache
paths. Please visit the Ideas board and vote for this feature if it would be useful for you or your organization. -
In some instances, a workaround for this is to save a particular workspace to cache:
- save_cache:
key: v1-{{ checksum "yarn.lock" }}
paths:
- node_modules/workspace-a
- node_modules/workspace-c
restore_cache
Restores a previously saved cache based on a key
. Cache needs to have been saved first for this key using save_cache
step. Learn more in the caching documentation.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
key | Y (1) | String | Single cache key to restore |
keys | Y (1) | List | List of cache keys to lookup for a cache to restore. Only first existing key will be restored. |
name | N | String | Title of the step to be shown in the CircleCI UI (default: “Restoring Cache”) |
(1) at least one attribute has to be present. If key
and keys
are both given, key
will be checked first, and then keys
.
A key is searched against existing keys as a prefix.
Note: When there are multiple matches, the most recent match will be used, even if there is a more precise match.
For example:
steps:
- save_cache:
key: v1-myapp-cache
paths:
- ~/d1
- save_cache:
key: v1-myapp-cache-new
paths:
- ~/d2
- run: rm -f ~/d1 ~/d2
- restore_cache:
key: v1-myapp-cache
In this case cache v1-myapp-cache-new
will be restored because it’s the most recent match with v1-myapp-cache
prefix even if the first key (v1-myapp-cache
) has exact match.
For more information on key formatting, see the key
section of save_cache
step.
When CircleCI encounters a list of keys
, the cache will be restored from the first one matching an existing cache. Most probably you would want to have a more specific key to be first (for example, cache for exact version of package-lock.json
file) and more generic keys after (for example, any cache for this project). If no key has a cache that exists, the step will be skipped with a warning.
A path is not required here because the cache will be restored to the location from which it was originally saved.
Example:
- restore_cache:
keys:
- v1-myapp-{{ arch }}-{{ checksum "project.clj" }}
# if cache for exact version of `project.clj` is not present then load any most recent one
- v1-myapp-
# ... Steps building and testing your application ...
# cache will be saved only once for each version of `project.clj`
- save_cache:
key: v1-myapp-{{ arch }}-{{ checksum "project.clj" }}
paths:
- /foo
deploy
- DEPRECATED
Please see run for current processes. If you have parallelism > in your job, please see Migration from deploy
to run
.
Migration from deploy
to run
Note: A config file that uses the deprecated deploy
step must be converted, and all instances of the deploy
step must be removed, regardless of whether or not parallelism is used in the job.
Does your job have parallelism of 1? Swap out the deploy
key for the run
key. Nothing more is needed to migrate.
Does your job have parallelism > 1? There is no direct replacement for the deploy
step if you are using parallelism > 1 in your job. The recommendation is to create two separate jobs within one workflow: a test job, and a deploy job. The test job will run the tests in parallel, and the deploy job will depend on the test job. The test job has parallelism > 1, and the deploy job will have the command from the previous deploy
step replaced with ‘run’ and no parallelism. Please see examples below.
Example:
The following is an example of replacing the deprecated deploy
step in a config file that has parallelism > 1 (this code is deprecated, do not copy):
# Example of deprecated syntax, do not copy
version: 2.1
jobs:
deploy-step-job:
docker:
- image: cimg/base:stable
parallelism: 3
steps:
- checkout
- run:
name: "Say hello"
command: "echo Hello, World!"
- run:
name: "Write random data"
command: openssl rand -hex 4 > rand_${CIRCLE_NODE_INDEX}.txt
- run:
name: "Emulate doing things"
command: |
if [[ "$CIRCLE_NODE_INDEX" != "0" ]]; then
sleep 30
fi
- deploy: #deprecated deploy step, do not copy
command: |
echo "this is a deploy step which needs data from the rand"
cat rand_*.txt
workflows:
deploy-step-workflow:
jobs:
- deploy-step-job
If you are entirely reliant on external resources (for example, Docker containers pushed to a registry), you can extract the deploy
step above as a job, which requires doing-things-job
to complete. doing-things-job
uses parallelism of 3, while deploy-step-job
performs the actual deployment. See example below:
version: 2.1
jobs:
doing-things-job:
docker:
- image: cimg/base:stable
parallelism: 3
steps:
- checkout
- run:
name: "Say hello"
command: "echo Hello, World!"
- run:
name: "Write random data"
command: openssl rand -hex 4 > rand_${CIRCLE_NODE_INDEX}.txt
- run:
name: "Emulate doing things"
command: |
if [[ "$CIRCLE_NODE_INDEX" != "0" ]]; then
sleep 30
fi
# create a new job with the deploy step in it
deploy-job:
docker:
- image: cimg/base:stable
steps:
- run: # change "deploy" to "run"
command: |
echo "this is a deploy step"
workflows:
deploy-step-workflow:
jobs:
- doing-things-job
# add your new job and make it depend on the
# "doing-things-job"
- deploy-job:
requires:
- doing-things-job
If files are needed from doing-things-job
in the deploy-job
, use workspaces. This enables sharing of files between two jobs so that the deploy-job
can access them. See example below:
version: 2.1
jobs:
doing-things-job:
docker:
- image: cimg/base:stable
parallelism: 3
steps:
- checkout
- run:
name: "Say hello"
command: "echo Hello, World!"
- run:
name: "Write random data"
command: openssl rand -hex 4 > rand_${CIRCLE_NODE_INDEX}.txt
- run:
name: "Emulate doing things"
command: |
if [[ "$CIRCLE_NODE_INDEX" != "0" ]]; then
sleep 30
fi
# save the files your deploy step needs
- persist_to_workspace:
root: . # relative path to our working directory
paths: # file globs which will be persisted to the workspace
- rand_*
deploy-job:
docker:
- image: cimg/base:stable
steps:
# attach the files you persisted in the doing-things-job
- attach_workspace:
at: . # relative path to our working directory
- run:
command: |
echo "this is a deploy step"
workflows:
deploy-step-workflow:
jobs:
- doing-things-job
- deploy-job:
requires:
- doing-things-job
This is effectively using a “fan-in” workflow which is described in detail on the workflows page. Support for the deprecated deploy
step will be removed at some point in the near future. Ample time will be given for customers to migrate their config.
store_artifacts
Step to store artifacts (for example logs, binaries, etc) to be available in the web app or through the API. See the Uploading Artifacts document for more information.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
path | Y | String | Directory in the primary container to save as job artifacts |
destination | N | String | Prefix added to the artifact paths in the artifacts API (default: the directory of the file specified in path ) |
There can be multiple store_artifacts
steps in a job. Using a unique prefix for each step prevents them from overwriting files.
Artifact storage retention can be customized on the CircleCI web app by navigating to Plan > Usage Controls.
Example:
- run:
name: Build the Jekyll site
command: bundle exec jekyll build --source jekyll --destination jekyll/_site/docs/
- store_artifacts:
path: jekyll/_site/docs/
destination: circleci-docs
store_test_results
Special step used to upload and store test results for a build. Test results are visible on the CircleCI web application under each build’s Test Summary section. Storing test results is useful for timing analysis of your test suites. For more information on storing test results, see the Collecting Test Data page.
It is also possible to store test results as a build artifact; to do so, please refer to the store_artifacts step.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
path | Y | String | Path (absolute, or relative to your working_directory ) to directory containing JUnit XML or Cucumber JSON test metadata files, or to a single test file. |
Example:
Directory structure:
test-results
├── jest
│ └── results.xml
├── mocha
│ └── results.xml
└── rspec
└── results.xml
config.yml
syntax:
- store_test_results:
path: test-results
persist_to_workspace
Special step used to persist a temporary file to be used by another job in the workflow. For more information on using workspaces, see the Using Workspaces to Share Data Between Jobs page.
persist_to_workspace
adopts the storage settings from the storage customization controls on the CircleCI web app. If no custom setting is provided, persist_to_workspace
defaults to 15 days.
Workspace storage retention can be customized on the CircleCI web app by navigating to Plan > Usage Controls.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
root | Y | String | Either an absolute path or a path relative to working_directory
|
paths | Y | List | Glob identifying file(s), or a non-glob path to a directory to add to the shared workspace. Interpreted as relative to the workspace root. Must not be the workspace root itself. |
The root key is a directory on the container which is taken to be the root directory of the workspace. The paths values are all relative to the root.
Example for root Key
For example, the following step syntax persists the specified paths from /tmp/dir
into the workspace, relative to the directory /tmp/dir
.
- persist_to_workspace:
root: /tmp/dir
paths:
- foo/bar
- baz
After this step completes, the following directories are added to the workspace:
/tmp/dir/foo/bar
/tmp/dir/baz
Example for paths Key
- persist_to_workspace:
root: /tmp/workspace
paths:
- target/application.jar
- build/*
The paths
list uses Glob
from Go, and the pattern matches filepath.Match.
pattern:
{ term }
term:
'*' matches any sequence of non-Separator characters
'?' matches any single non-Separator character
'[' [ '^' ] { character-range }
']' character class (must be non-empty)
c matches character c (c != '*', '?', '\\', '[')
'\\' c matches character c
character-range:
c matches character c (c != '\\', '-', ']')
'\\' c matches character c
lo '-' hi matches character c for lo <= c <= hi
The Go documentation states that the pattern may describe hierarchical names such as /usr/*/bin/ed
(assuming the Separator is ‘/’). Note: Everything must be relative to the work space root directory.
attach_workspace
Special step used to attach the workflow’s workspace to the current container. The full contents of the workspace are downloaded and copied into the directory the workspace is being attached at. For more information on using workspaces, see the Using Workspaces to Share Data Between Jobs page.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
at | Y | String | Directory to attach the workspace to. |
Workspace storage retention can be customized on the CircleCI web app by navigating to Plan > Usage Controls.
Example:
- attach_workspace:
at: /tmp/workspace
The lifetime of artifacts, workspaces, and caches can be customized on the CircleCI web app by navigating to Plan > Usage Controls. Here you can control the storage retention periods for these objects. If no storage period is set, the default storage retention period of artifacts is 30 days, while the default storage retention period of workspaces and caches is 15 days.
add_ssh_keys
Special step that adds SSH keys from a project’s settings to a container. Also configures SSH to use these keys. For more information on SSH keys see the GitHub and Bitbucket Integration page.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
fingerprints | N | List | List of fingerprints corresponding to the keys to be added (default: all keys added) |
steps:
- add_ssh_keys:
fingerprints:
- "b7:35:a6:4e:9b:0d:6d:d4:78:1e:9a:97:2a:66:6b:be"
Note: Even though CircleCI uses ssh-agent
to sign all added SSH keys, you must use the add_ssh_keys
key to actually add keys to a container.
Using pipeline
Values
Pipeline values are available to all pipeline configurations and can be used without previous declaration. The pipeline values available are as follows:
Variable | Type | Value |
---|---|---|
pipeline.id | String | A globally unique id representing for the pipeline |
pipeline.number | Integer | A project unique integer id for the pipeline |
pipeline.project.git_url | String | The URL where the current project is hosted. For example, https://github.com/circleci/circleci-docs
|
pipeline.project.type | String | The lower-case name of the VCS provider, E.g. “github”, “bitbucket”. |
pipeline.git.tag | String | The name of the git tag that was pushed to trigger the pipeline. If the pipeline was not triggered by a tag, then this is the empty string. |
pipeline.git.branch | String | The name of the git branch that was pushed to trigger the pipeline. |
pipeline.git.revision | String | The long (40-character) git SHA that is being built. |
pipeline.git.base_revision | String | The long (40-character) git SHA of the build prior to the one being built. Note: While in most cases pipeline.git.base_revision will be the SHA of the pipeline that ran before your currently running pipeline, there are some caveats. When the build is the first build for a branch, the variable will not be present. In addition, if the build was triggered via the API, the variable will not be present. |
pipeline.in_setup | Boolean | True if the pipeline is in the setup phase, i.e. running a setup workflow. |
pipeline.trigger_source | String | The source that triggers the pipeline, current values are webhook , api , scheduled_pipeline
|
pipeline.schedule.name | String | The name of the schedule if it is a scheduled pipeline. Value will be empty string if the pipeline is triggerd by other sources |
pipeline.schedule.id | String | The unique id of the schedule if it is a scheduled pipeline. Value will be empty string if the pipeline is triggerd by other sources |
For example:
version: 2.1
jobs:
build:
docker:
- image: cimg/node:17.2.0
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
environment:
IMAGETAG: latest
working_directory: ~/main
steps:
- run: echo "This is pipeline ID << pipeline.id >>"
circleci_ip_ranges
Enables jobs to go through a set of well-defined IP address ranges. See IP ranges for details.
Example:
version: 2.1
jobs:
build:
circleci_ip_ranges: true # opts the job into the IP ranges feature
docker:
- image: curlimages/curl
steps:
- run: echo “Hello World”
workflows:
build-workflow:
jobs:
- build
Notes:
- A paid account on a Performance or Scale plan is required to access IP ranges.
workflows
Used for orchestrating all jobs. Each workflow consists of the workflow name as a key and a map as a value. A name should be unique within the current config.yml
. The top-level keys for the Workflows configuration are version
and jobs
. For more information, see the Using Workflows to Schedule Jobs page.
version
- not required for v2.1 configuration
The Workflows version
field is used to issue warnings for deprecation or breaking changes.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
version | Y if config version is 2
| String | Should currently be 2
|
<workflow_name
>
A unique name for your workflow.
triggers
Specifies which triggers will cause this workflow to be executed. Default behavior is to trigger the workflow when pushing to a branch.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
triggers | N | Array | Should currently be schedule . |
schedule
Scheduled workflows will be phased out by the end of 2022. Visit the scheduled pipelines migration guide to find out how to migrate existing scheduled workflows to scheduled pipelines, or to set up scheduled pipelines from scratch.
A workflow may have a schedule
indicating it runs at a certain time, for example a nightly build that runs every day at 12am UTC:
workflows:
version: 2
nightly:
triggers:
- schedule:
cron: "0 0 * * *"
filters:
branches:
only:
- main
- beta
jobs:
- test
cron
The cron
key is defined using POSIX crontab
syntax.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
cron | Y | String | See the crontab man page. |
filters
Trigger Filters can have the key branches
.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
filters | Y | Map | A map defining rules for execution on specific branches |
branches
The branches
key controls whether the current branch should have a schedule trigger created for it, where current branch is the branch containing the config.yml
file with the trigger
stanza. That is, a push on the main
branch will only schedule a workflow for the main
branch.
Branches can have the keys only
and ignore
which each map to a single string naming a branch. You may also use regular expressions to match against branches by enclosing them with /
’s, or map to a list of such strings. Regular expressions must match the entire string.
- Any branches that match
only
will run the job. - Any branches that match
ignore
will not run the job. - If neither
only
norignore
are specified then all branches will run the job. If bothonly
andignore
are specified, theonly
is used andignore
will have no effect.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
branches | Y | Map | A map defining rules for execution on specific branches |
only | Y | String, or List of Strings | Either a single branch specifier, or a list of branch specifiers |
ignore | N | String, or List of Strings | Either a single branch specifier, or a list of branch specifiers |
jobs
A job can have the keys requires
, name
, context
, type
, and filters
.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
jobs | Y | List | A list of jobs to run with their dependencies |
<job_name
>
A job name that exists in your config.yml
.
requires
Jobs are run in parallel by default, so you must explicitly require any dependencies by their job name.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
requires | N | List | A list of jobs that must succeed for the job to start. Note: When jobs in the current workflow that are listed as dependencies are not executed (due to a filter function for example), their requirement as a dependency for other jobs will be ignored by the requires option. However, if all dependencies of a job are filtered, then that job will not be executed either. |
name
The name
key can be used to invoke reusable jobs across any number of workflows. Using the name key ensures numbers are not appended to your job name (i.e. sayhello-1 , sayhello-2, etc.). The name you assign to the name
key needs to be unique, otherwise the numbers will still be appended to the job name.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
name | N | String | A replacement for the job name. Useful when calling a job multiple times. If you want to invoke the same job multiple times, and a job requires one of the duplicate jobs, this key is required. (2.1 only) |
context
Jobs may be configured to use global environment variables set for an organization, see the Contexts document for adding a context in the application settings.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
context | N | String/List | The name of the context(s). The initial default name is org-global . Each context name must be unique. If using CircleCI Server, only a single Context per workflow is supported. Note: A maximum of 100 unique contexts across all workflows is allowed. |
type
A job may have a type
of approval
indicating it must be manually approved before downstream jobs may proceed. For more information see the Using Workflows to Schedule Jobs page.
Jobs run in the dependency order until the workflow processes a job with the type: approval
key followed by a job on which it depends, for example:
- hold:
type: approval
requires:
- test1
- test2
- deploy:
requires:
- hold
Note: The hold
job name must not exist in the main configuration.
filters
Job Filters can have the key branches
or tags
.
Note Workflows will ignore job-level branching. If you use job-level branching and later add workflows, you must remove the branching at the job level and instead declare it in the workflows section of your config.yml
, as follows:
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
filters | N | Map | A map defining rules for execution on specific branches |
The following is an example of how the CircleCI documentation uses a regex to filter running a workflow for building PDF documentation:
# ...
workflows:
build-deploy:
jobs:
- js_build
- build_server_pdfs: # << the job to conditionally run based on the filter-by-branch-name.
filters:
branches:
only: /server\/.*/
The above snippet causes the job build_server_pdfs
to only be run when the branch being built starts with “server/”.
You can read more about using regex in your config in the Using Workflows to Schedule Jobs page.
branches
Branches can have the keys only
and ignore
which either map to a single string naming a branch. You may also use regular expressions to match against branches by enclosing them with slashes, or map to a list of such strings. Regular expressions must match the entire string.
- Any branches that match
only
will run the job. - Any branches that match
ignore
will not run the job. - If neither
only
norignore
are specified then all branches will run the job. - If both
only
andignore
are specified theonly
is considered beforeignore
.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
branches | N | Map | A map defining rules for execution on specific branches |
only | N | String, or List of Strings | Either a single branch specifier, or a list of branch specifiers |
ignore | N | String, or List of Strings | Either a single branch specifier, or a list of branch specifiers |
tags
CircleCI does not run workflows for tags unless you explicitly specify tag filters. Additionally, if a job requires any other jobs (directly or indirectly), you must specify tag filters for those jobs.
Tags can have the keys only
and ignore
. You may also use regular expressions to match against tags by enclosing them with slashes, or map to a list of such strings. Regular expressions must match the entire string. Both lightweight and annotated tags are supported.
- Any tags that match
only
will run the job. - Any tags that match
ignore
will not run the job. - If neither
only
norignore
are specified then the job is skipped for all tags. - If both
only
andignore
are specified theonly
is considered beforeignore
.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
tags | N | Map | A map defining rules for execution on specific tags |
only | N | String, or List of Strings | Either a single tag specifier, or a list of tag specifiers |
ignore | N | String, or List of Strings | Either a single tag specifier, or a list of tag specifiers |
For more information, see the Executing Workflows For a Git Tag section of the Workflows document.
matrix
(requires version: 2.1)
The matrix
stanza allows you to run a parameterized job multiple times with different arguments. For more information see the how-to guide on Using Matrix Jobs.
Note: In order to use the matrix
stanza, you must use parameterized jobs.
Key | Required | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
parameters | Y | Map | A map of parameter names to every value the job should be called with |
exclude | N | List | A list of argument maps that should be excluded from the matrix |
alias | N | String | An alias for the matrix, usable from another job’s requires stanza. Defaults to the name of the job being executed |
Example
The following is a basic example of using matrix jobs.
workflows:
workflow:
jobs:
- build:
matrix:
parameters:
version: ["0.1", "0.2", "0.3"]
platform: ["macos", "windows", "linux"]
This expands to 9 different build
jobs, and could be equivalently written as:
workflows:
workflow:
jobs:
- build:
name: build-macos-0.1
version: 0.1
platform: macos
- build:
name: build-macos-0.2
version: 0.2
platform: macos
- build:
name: build-macos-0.3
version: 0.3
platform: macos
- build:
name: build-windows-0.1
version: 0.1
platform: windows
- ...
Excluding sets of parameters from a matrix
Sometimes you may wish to run a job with every combination of arguments except some value or values. You can use an exclude
stanza to achieve this:
workflows:
workflow:
jobs:
- build:
matrix:
parameters:
a: [1, 2, 3]
b: [4, 5, 6]
exclude:
- a: 3
b: 5
The matrix above would expand into 8 jobs: every combination of the parameters a
and b
, excluding {a: 3, b: 5}
Dependencies and matrix jobs
To require
an entire matrix (every job within the matrix), use its alias
. The alias
defaults to the name of the job being invoked.
workflows:
workflow:
jobs:
- deploy:
matrix:
parameters:
version: ["0.1", "0.2"]
- another-job:
requires:
- deploy
This means that another-job
will require both deploy jobs in the matrix to finish before it runs.
Additionally, matrix jobs expose their parameter values via << matrix.* >>
which can be used to generate more complex workflows. For example, here is a deploy
matrix where each job waits for its respective build
job in another matrix.
workflows:
workflow:
jobs:
- build:
name: build-v<< matrix.version >>
matrix:
parameters:
version: ["0.1", "0.2"]
- deploy:
name: deploy-v<< matrix.version >>
matrix:
parameters:
version: ["0.1", "0.2"]
requires:
- build-v<< matrix.version >>
This workflow will expand to:
workflows:
workflow:
jobs:
- build:
name: build-v0.1
version: 0.1
- build:
name: build-v0.2
version: 0.2
- deploy:
name: deploy-v0.1
version: 0.1
requires:
- build-v0.1
- deploy:
name: deploy-v0.2
version: 0.2
requires:
- build-v0.2
pre-steps
and post-steps
(requires version: 2.1)
Every job invocation in a workflow may optionally accept two special arguments: pre-steps
and post-steps
.
Steps under pre-steps
are executed before any of the other steps in the job. The steps under post-steps
are executed after all of the other steps.
Pre and post steps allow you to execute steps in a given job without modifying the job. This is useful, for example, to run custom setup steps before job execution.
version: 2.1
jobs:
bar:
machine:
image: ubuntu-2004:202107-02
steps:
- checkout
- run:
command: echo "building"
- run:
command: echo "testing"
workflows:
build:
jobs:
- bar:
pre-steps: # steps to run before steps defined in the job bar
- run:
command: echo "install custom dependency"
post-steps: # steps to run after steps defined in the job bar
- run:
command: echo "upload artifact to s3"
Using when
in Workflows
With version 2.1 configuration, you may use a when
clause (the inverse clause unless
is also supported) under a workflow declaration with a logic statement to determine whether or not to run that workflow.
The example configuration below uses a pipeline parameter, run_integration_tests
to drive the integration_tests
workflow.
version: 2.1
parameters:
run_integration_tests:
type: boolean
default: false
workflows:
integration_tests:
when: << pipeline.parameters.run_integration_tests >>
jobs:
- mytestjob
jobs:
...
This example prevents the workflow integration_tests
from running unless the tests are invoked explicitly when the pipeline is triggered with the following in the POST
body:
{
"parameters": {
"run_integration_tests": true
}
}
Refer to the Orchestrating Workflows document for more examples and conceptual information.
Logic statements
Certain dynamic configuration features accept logic statements as arguments. Logic statements are evaluated to boolean values at configuration compilation time, that is - before the workflow is run. The group of logic statements includes:
Type | Arguments |
true if | Example |
---|---|---|---|
YAML literal | None | is truthy |
true /42 /"a string"
|
YAML alias | None | resolves to a truthy value | *my-alias |
Pipeline Value | None | resolves to a truthy value | << pipeline.git.branch >> |
Pipeline Parameter | None | resolves to a truthy value | << pipeline.parameters.my-parameter >> |
and | N logic statements | all arguments are truthy | and: [ true, true, false ] |
or | N logic statements | any argument is truthy | or: [ false, true, false ] |
not | 1 logic statement | the argument is not truthy | not: true |
equal | N values | all arguments evaluate to equal values | equal: [ 42, << pipeline.number >>] |
matches |
pattern and value
|
value matches the pattern
| matches: { pattern: "^feature-.+$", value: << pipeline.git.branch >> } |
The following logic values are considered falsy:
- false
- null
- 0
- NaN
- empty strings (“”)
- statements with no arguments
All other values are truthy. Also note that using logic with an empty list will cause a validation error.
Logic statements always evaluate to a boolean value at the top level, and coerce as necessary. They can be nested in an arbitrary fashion, according to their argument specifications, and to a maximum depth of 100 levels.
matches
uses Java regular expressions for its pattern
. A full match pattern must be provided, prefix matching is not an option. Though, it is recommended to enclose a pattern in ^
and $
to avoid accidental partial matches.
Note: When using logic statements at the workflow level, do not include the condition:
key (the condition
key is only needed for job
level logic statements).
Logic statement examples
workflows:
my-workflow:
when:
or:
- equal: [ main, << pipeline.git.branch >> ]
- equal: [ staging, << pipeline.git.branch >> ]
workflows:
my-workflow:
when:
and:
- not:
matches:
pattern: "^main$"
value: << pipeline.git.branch >>
- or:
- equal: [ canary, << pipeline.git.tag >> ]
- << pipeline.parameters.deploy-canary >>
version: 2.1
executors:
linux-13:
docker:
- image: cimg/node:13.13
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
macos: &macos-executor
macos:
xcode: 12.5.1
jobs:
test:
parameters:
os:
type: executor
node-version:
type: string
executor: << parameters.os >>
steps:
- checkout
- when:
condition:
equal: [ *macos-executor, << parameters.os >> ]
steps:
- run: echo << parameters.node-version >>
- run: echo 0
workflows:
all-tests:
jobs:
- test:
os: macos
node-version: "13.13.0"
Example full configuration
version: 2.1
jobs:
build:
docker:
- image: ubuntu:14.04
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
- image: mongo:2.6.8
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
command: [mongod, --smallfiles]
- image: postgres:14.2
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
# some containers require setting environment variables
environment:
POSTGRES_USER: user
- image: redis@sha256:54057dd7e125ca41afe526a877e8bd35ec2cdd33b9217e022ed37bdcf7d09673
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
- image: rabbitmq:3.5.4
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
environment:
TEST_REPORTS: /tmp/test-reports
working_directory: ~/my-project
steps:
- checkout
- run:
command: echo 127.0.0.1 devhost | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts
# Create Postgres users and database
# Note the YAML heredoc '|' for nicer formatting
- run: |
sudo -u root createuser -h localhost --superuser ubuntu &&
sudo createdb -h localhost test_db
- restore_cache:
keys:
- v1-my-project-{{ checksum "project.clj" }}
- v1-my-project-
- run:
environment:
SSH_TARGET: "localhost"
TEST_ENV: "linux"
command: |
set -xu
mkdir -p ${TEST_REPORTS}
run-tests.sh
cp out/tests/*.xml ${TEST_REPORTS}
- run: |
set -xu
mkdir -p /tmp/artifacts
create_jars.sh << pipeline.number >>
cp *.jar /tmp/artifacts
- save_cache:
key: v1-my-project-{{ checksum "project.clj" }}
paths:
- ~/.m2
# Save artifacts
- store_artifacts:
path: /tmp/artifacts
destination: build
# Upload test results
- store_test_results:
path: /tmp/test-reports
deploy-stage:
docker:
- image: ubuntu:14.04
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
working_directory: /tmp/my-project
steps:
- run:
name: Deploy if tests pass and branch is Staging
command: ansible-playbook site.yml -i staging
deploy-prod:
docker:
- image: ubuntu:14.04
auth:
username: mydockerhub-user
password: $DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD # context / project UI env-var reference
working_directory: /tmp/my-project
steps:
- run:
name: Deploy if tests pass and branch is Main
command: ansible-playbook site.yml -i production
workflows:
version: 2
build-deploy:
jobs:
- build:
filters:
branches:
ignore:
- develop
- /feature-.*/
- deploy-stage:
requires:
- build
filters:
branches:
only: staging
- deploy-prod:
requires:
- build
filters:
branches:
only: main
See also
Help make this document better
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