The problem
There are two options to have branch-specific configuration with appveyor.yml
:
- Commit
appveyor.yml
into each branch with branch-specific settings. - Use Conditional build configuration where
appveyor.yml
has a list of configurations for different branches.
The problem with 1st approach is merging as you are overriding appveyor.yml
in the base branch with one from the branch being merged.
2nd approach requires appveyor.yml
of the following format:
# configuration for "master" branch
# build in Release mode and deploy to Azure
-
branches:
only:
- master
configuration: Release
deploy:
provider: AzureCS
...
# configuration for all branches starting from "dev-"
# build in Debug mode and deploy locally for testing
-
branches:
only:
- /dev-.*/
configuration: Debug
deploy:
provider: Local
...
# "fall back" configuration for all other branches
# no "branches" section defined
# do not deploy at all
-
configuration: Debug
While this approach works great in the most cases there is one incovenience though - with large configuration and many branches appveyor.yml
becomes really unmanageable and error-prone as you have to repeat (copy-paste) entire configuration for every branch.
The solution
We just deployed an update to AppVeyor that allows sharing common configuration between branches in a single appveyor.yml
!
There is new for
node with a list of branch-specific configurations overriding common configuration defined on the top most level, for example:
# common configuration for ALL branches
environment:
MY_VAR1: value-A
init:
- do_something_on_init.cmd
install:
- do_something_on_install.cmd
configuration: Debug
# here we are going to override common configuration
for:
# override settings for `master` branch
-
branches:
only:
- master
configuration: Release
deploy:
provider: FTP
...
# override settings for `dev-*` branches
-
branches:
only:
- /dev-.*/
environment:
MY_VAR2: value-B
deploy:
provider: Local
...
In the example above we define environment
, init
and install
sections for all branches as well as stating that default configuration
is Debug
. Then, for master
branch we override default settings by changing configuration
to Release
and adding deployment with FTP
provider. For dev-*
branches we define a second environment variable MY_VAR2
and enable deployment to Local
environment.
Configuration merging rules:
- Scalar values such as
image
,version
,configuration
,platform
, etc. defined on branch level override default ones; - Script sections such
init
,install
,before_build
,test_script
, etc. defined on branch level override default ones; - Environment variables defined in
environment
sections are merged (new) and overridden (existing); - Build matrix defined on branch level merges with default one;
deploy
,artifacts
,notifications
section can be either overridden or extended.
For example, consider the following configuration:
artifacts:
- path: bin
deploy:
- provider: Local
...
notifications:
- provider: Email
...
for:
branches:
only:
- master
artifacts:
- path: docs
deploy: off
notifications:
provider: Slack
...
In the example above we do the following:
- For
master
branch we addingdocs
folder to artifacts definition, so bothbin
anddocs
folders collected. Both default and branch-specific collections were merged. - For
master
branch we disable any deployment.off
ornone
on branch-level clears default collection. - For
master
branch we replace all notifications on default level with a singleSlack
notification.
Best regards,
AppVeyor team
Follow us on Twitter: @appveyor