RBE with GitHub Actions

Using BuildBuddy RBE with Github Actions is the simplest way to get started using BuildBuddy with a CI system.

Setup instructions

There are three steps:

1. Create a workflow file
2. Update your .bazelrc
3. Set up cert Github secrets

Workflow file

All you have to do is create a file .github/workflows/main.yaml

name: CI

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    
    steps:
    - name: Checkout
      uses: actions/checkout@v1

    - name: Install bazelisk
      run: |
        curl -LO "https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazelisk/releases/download/v1.1.0/bazelisk-linux-amd64"
        mkdir -p "${GITHUB_WORKSPACE}/bin/"
        mv bazelisk-linux-amd64 "${GITHUB_WORKSPACE}/bin/bazel"
        chmod +x "${GITHUB_WORKSPACE}/bin/bazel"
    - name: Create certs
      run: |
        echo "${{ secrets.BUILDBUDDY_ORG_CERT }}">buildbuddy-cert.pem
        echo "${{ secrets.BUILDBUDDY_ORG_KEY }}">buildbuddy-key.pem
    - name: Build
      run: |
        "${GITHUB_WORKSPACE}/bin/bazel" build --config=ci //...
    - name: Test
      run: |
        "${GITHUB_WORKSPACE}/bin/bazel" test --config=ci //...

Updating your .bazelrc

You'll then need to add the following configuration to your .bazelrc

build:ci --build_metadata=ROLE=CI
build:ci --build_metadata=VISIBILITY=PUBLIC
build:ci --tls_client_certificate=buildbuddy-cert.pem
build:ci --tls_client_key=buildbuddy-key.pem

Github secrets

Finally, you'll need to create Github secrets with the contents of your buildbuddy-cert.pem and buildbuddy-key.pem files.

You can download these files by logging in to your BuildBuddy account and visiting your Setup instructions. You can then click Download buildbuddy-cert.pem and Download buildbuddy-key.pem.

You can then open these two files in a text editor, and add them as Github Secrets named BUILDBUDDY_ORG_CERT and BUILDBUDDY_ORG_KEY. For more information on setting up Github Secrets, click here.

Github commit statuses

If you'd like BuildBuddy to publish commit statuses to your repo, you can do so by logging in and clicking Link Github Account in the user menu in the top right.

Visibility

By default, authenticated builds are only visible to members of your BuildBuddy organization. If you'd like your BuildBuddy results pages to be visible to members outside of your organization, you can add the following line to your .bazelrc:

build:ci --build_metadata=VISIBILITY=PUBLIC

Remote build execution

If you'd like to use BuildBuddy's Remote Build Execution capabilities in your CI workflow, you can add the following lines to your .bazelrc:

build:remote --bes_results_url=https://app.buildbuddy.io/invocation/
build:remote --bes_backend=grpcs://cloud.buildbuddy.io
build:remote --remote_cache=grpcs://cloud.buildbuddy.io
build:remote --remote_executor=grpcs://cloud.buildbuddy.io
build:remote --remote_upload_local_results
build:remote --host_platform=@buildbuddy_toolchain//:platform
build:remote --platforms=@buildbuddy_toolchain//:platform
build:remote --crosstool_top=@buildbuddy_toolchain//:toolchain
build:remote --jobs=100

build:ci --config=remote

And the following lines to your WORKSPACE file:

http_archive(
    name = "io_buildbuddy_toolchain",
    strip_prefix = "toolchain-master",
    urls = ["https://github.com/buildbuddy-io/toolchain/archive/master.tar.gz"],
)

load("@io_buildbuddy_toolchain//:rules.bzl", "register_buildbuddy_toolchain")

register_buildbuddy_toolchain(
    name = "buildbuddy_toolchain",
    llvm = False,
)

If you're using Java, or have a complex project - you'll likely need to configure the toolchain flags a bit. For more information, see our Remote Build Execution guide.