I’m trying to set up GitLab CI/CD for an old client-side project that makes use of Grunt ( https://github.com/yeoman/generator-angular ). Up to now the deployment worked like this: run ’$ grunt build’ locally which built the project and created files in a ‘dist’ folder in the root of the project commit changes changes pulled onto production server After creating the .gitlab-ci.yml and making a commit, the GitLab CI/CD job passes but the files in the ‘dist’ folder in the repository are not updated. If I define an artifact, I will get the changed files in the download. However I would prefer the files in ‘dist’ folder in the to be updated so we can carry on with the same workflow which suits us. Is this achievable?

Reputation: 609

How to update repository with built project?

I’m trying to set up GitLab CI/CD for an old client-side project that makes use of Grunt (https://github.com/yeoman/generator-angular).

Up to now the deployment worked like this:

run ’$ grunt build’ locally which built the project and created files in a ‘dist’ folder in the root of the project
commit changes
changes pulled onto production server

After creating the .gitlab-ci.yml and making a commit, the GitLab CI/CD job passes but the files in the ‘dist’ folder in the repository are not updated. If I define an artifact, I will get the changed files in the download. However I would prefer the files in ‘dist’ folder in the to be updated so we can carry on with the same workflow which suits us. Is this achievable?

Upvotes: 0

Answers (1)

trust512

Reputation: 2246

I don't think commiting into your repo inside a pipeline is a good idea. Version control wouldn't be as clear, some people have automatic pipeline trigger when their repo is pushed, that'd trigger a loop of pipelines.

Instead, you might reorganize your environment to use Docker, there are numerous reasons for using Docker in a professional and development environments. To name just a few: that'd enable you to save the freshly built project into a registry and reuse it whenever needed right with the version you require and with the desired /dist inside. So that you can easily run it in multiple places, scale it, manage it etc.

If you changed to Docker you wouldn't actually have to do a thing in order to have the dist persistent, just push the image to the registry after the build is done.

But to actually answer your question:

There is a feature request hanging for a very long time for the same problem you asked about: here. Currently there is no safe and professional way to do it as GitLab members state. Although you can push back changes as one of the GitLab members suggested (Kamil Trzciński):

git push http://gitlab.com/group/project.git HEAD:my-branch

Just put it in your script section inside gitlab-ci file. There are more hack'y methods presented there, but be sure to acknowledge risks that come with them (pipelines are more error prone and if configured in a wrong way, they might for example publish some confidential information and trigger an infinite pipelines loop to name a few).

I hope you found this useful.

Upvotes: 1

How to update repository with built project?

Answers (1)

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