djinn VS runner

Djinn CI is a newly launched CI platform, with the following features:

I've built a CI platform [1] that does support running your CI builds without the server using an offline runner. I wrote about it here before: https://blog.djinn-ci.com/showcase/2022/08/06/running-your-c...

[1] - https://about.djinn-ci.com/

Author of Djinn CI here. This is a CI platform that I developed, it is open source but there is also a hosted offering https://about.djinn-ci.com. Some of the features are detailed below:

* Fully virtualized Linux VMs

* GitHub/GitLab integration

* Variable masking

* Configurable artifact cleanup limits

* Multi-repository builds

* Repeatable builds with cron jobs

* Custom QCOW2 images for builds

I've written some posts demonstrating the features of the platform which I have posted here before:

* https://blog.djinn-ci.com/showcase/2022/08/06/running-your-c...

* https://blog.djinn-ci.com/showcase/2022/08/16/using-multiple...

For further reading there is also the documentation sub-site at https://docs.djinn-ci.com/.

If you have any questions don't hesitate to reach out.

Good article. Firecracker is something that has definitely piqued my interest when it comes to quickly spinning up a throwaway environment to use for either development or CI. I run a CI platform [1], which currently uses QEMU for the build environments (Docker is also supported but currently disabled on the hosted offering), startup times are ok, but having a boot time of 1-2s is definitely highly appealing. I will have to investigate Firecracker further to see if I could incorporate this into what I'm doing.

Julia Evans has also written about Firecracker in the past too [2][3].

[1] - https://about.djinn-ci.com

[2] - https://jvns.ca/blog/2021/01/23/firecracker--start-a-vm-in-l...

[3] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25883253

At this point when it came to my hobbyist development, I had moved past PHP and started learning Go, and was looking to do some serious development with this for a CI platform I had an idea for. By now, I had a firmer grasp of the software stack I wanted to work with, a better understanding of how everything pieced together. And so I went about developing that CI platform, that would later become Djinn CI. I uninstalled VirtualBox and Vagrant and fully committed to using QEMU, booting up the local machine was as simple as hitting CTRL + R in my terminal, searching for qemu and hitting enter, an elegant solution I know.

I use mcmathja/curlyq and found it pretty reliable. This is the queue I use for Djinn CI an open source CI platform I developed.

Djinn CI makes working with multiple repositoriesin a build simple via the sourcesparameter in the build manifest. This allows you to specify multiple Git respositories to clone into your build environment. Each source would be a URL that could be cloned via git clone. With most CI platforms, a build's manifest is typically tied to the source code repository itself. With Djinn CI, whilst you can have a build manifest in a source code repository, the CI server itself doesn't really have an understanding of that repository. Instead, it simply looks at the sources in the manifest that is specified, and clones each of them into the build environment.

Perhaps the one feature that sets Djinn CI out from other CI platforms is the fact that is has an offline runner. The offline runner allows for CI builds to be run without having to send them to the server. There are some limitations around this, of course, but it provides a useful mechanism for sanity checking build manifests, testing custom images, and for building software without the need for a CI server.

You mention CI being done in a distributed fashion. Could you elaborate on what you mean by this?

I'm asking as I'm someone who has developed a CI platform [1], and one of its features is the offline runner [2]. The offline runner allows you to run your CI builds on your own computer, and does not communicate with the CI server whatsoever. Is this what you had in mind?

[1] https://about.djinn-ci.com

[2] https://docs.djinn-ci.com/user/offline-runner/

Djinn CI is a newly launched CI platform, with the following features:

In the case of GitHub Actions, it's made more painful by the lack of support for YAML anchors, which provide a bare minimum of composability.

https://github.com/actions/runner/issues/1182

Even if you don’t pick Avalonia, their notes for Mac distribution look useful:

https://docs.avaloniaui.net/docs/distribution-publishing/mac...

For example, the GitHub actions runner itself is a modern .NET core project with CI except for .app packaging.

https://github.com/actions/runner/tree/main/.github/workflow...

This probably answers your question:

https://github.com/actions/runner/blob/a4c57f27477077e57545a...

$ mkdir actions-runner && cd actions-runner $ curl -o actions-runner-osx-arm64-2.311.0.tar.gz -L https://github.com/actions/runner/releases/download/v2.311.0/actions-runner-osx-arm64-2.311.0.tar.gz % Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 0 100 98.1M 100 98.1M 0 0 20.0M 0 0:00:04 0:00:04 --:--:-- 23.5M $ echo "fa2f107dbce709807bae014fb3121f5dbe106211b6bbe3484c41e3b30828d6b2 actions-runner-osx-arm64-2.311.0.tar.gz" | shasum -a 256 -c actions-runner-osx-arm64-2.311.0.tar.gz: OK $ tar xzf ./actions-runner-osx-arm64-2.311.0.tar.gz ❯ ./config.sh --url https://github.com/dpills/devops-quick-start-guide --token AGDCRGCMZWN34QIVISIO5XXXXXX -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | | / ___(_) |_| | | |_ _| |__ / \ ___| |_(_) ___ _ __ ___ | | | | _| | __| |_| | | | | '_ \ / _ \ / __| __| |/ _ \| '_ \/ __| | | | |_| | | |_| _ | |_| | |_) | / ___ \ (__| |_| | (_) | | | \__ \ | | \____|_|\__|_| |_|\__,_|_.__/ /_/ \_\___|\__|_|\___/|_| |_|___/ | | | | Self-hosted runner registration | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # Authentication √ Connected to GitHub # Runner Registration Enter the name of the runner group to add this runner to: [press Enter for Default] Enter the name of runner: [press Enter for dpills-mac] This runner will have the following labels: 'self-hosted', 'macOS', 'ARM64' Enter any additional labels (ex. label-1,label-2): [press Enter to skip] √ Runner successfully added √ Runner connection is good # Runner settings Enter name of work folder: [press Enter for _work] √ Settings Saved. ❯ ./run.sh √ Connected to GitHub Current runner version: '2.311.0' 2023-10-27 13:32:16Z: Listening for Jobs

A runner is where your action's jobs will be run. It can be a hosted virtual environment, or you can self-host a runner in your machine.

If i understand this writing correctly (https://github.com/actions/runner/issues/904), running Windows containers in a windows-latest GH Actions host is not possible. While using a self-hosted runner on a Windows server might be an option, this is not what I want since it is a package repo for a well-known open source project, think of the package repo part as a mini-Conan. I wouldn't know who would want to host that. In the best case we would stay with just GH Actions to keep everything confined in one space :)