About this project

This is just a simple app where I experiment with creating a simple CI/CD tool using docker, makefiles, and python.

(CI/CD means Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery)

Why another CI / CD Project?

Good question! I've setup production deployments of Jenkins, Drone, and some other hosted services. They work well, and I have few complaints. However, I do see that while you can build and test docker images in isolation, few of current crop of CD/CD tools offer a direct way to simply use docker-compose and Makefile as task runners.

Many of the tools offer lots of abstractions which, when configured properly will stand up robust, reliable, and information-rich services.

Goals of the project

1. Learn CI/CD from the ground-up using technologies I like best. (Currently Python and docker)
2. Test environments using docker-compose and Makefile as task runners
3. Use this CI/CD system in production for all of my side projects
4. Have a tool that requires as little resources as possible (Depending on the tests)
5. Use CI/CD without learning another DSL, configuration format, or programming language. (This is subjective, I guess)

Logical layout

Getting started

1. Create .env (Configure environment variables)

Copy the env.sample to .env in this folder. Open the .env file in a text editor.

1. Configure a SSH key so that the CI container can pull/push git repos. See the comments in the env.sample file
2. Configure DOCKER_USER and DOCKER_PASS if you are pushing docker images to docker hub.

TODO: Perhaps create a Makefile target this will kick this off.

2. Create settings.py (Project configuration file)

Copy settings.sample to settings.py. This is the "database" for configuring the various projects that mini-ci will build. Things such as:

• Code repo URL
• Notifications
• Deploy keys

TODO: Create a Makefile target that sets this up

How to use this file

The root keys in the settings variables must match the webhook uri. That means that when a webhook post comes in github to http://youserver/webhook/project_1, then settings must look something like this:

settings = {
    "project_1": {
        "GIT_REPO": "http://github.com/username/reponame.git"
        "OPTIONAL_ENV_1": "test123",
        "OPTIONAL_ENV_2": "hahahaha"
    },
}

These settings will be imported into the build runners as environment variables. That means that GIT_REPO will be accesses as $GIT_REPO in the bash commands and makefile.

Required keys: - GIT_REPO

Put a Makefile in your project and define a 'ci-build' target

Mini-ci will attempt to run a Makefile from the root folder of you source code. In that Makefile you must define You must define the ci-deploy target in your makefile for the runner to do its job.

This is a hard-coded requirement at the moment.

The Makefile will have access to the environment variables that come from your project's configuration in settings.py. See the comments in the Makefile sourcecode to see how they are used.

Please take note how this Makefile uses environment variables from settings.py which are used in naming and tagging docker images as well as instructing the production environment (dokku server) to update code with new docker images.

Have a look in the examples/ folder to see how you might use it

Other important things you need to know

Security is not a primary goal on this project

Be advised! This project requires running docker images with access to the docker socket (/var/run/docker.socket). You should therefore only run this app in a trusted environment.