Orb Author - Validate and Publish Orbs
Introduction
When you have finished authoring your orb, you may then test your orb to ensure it will work in your configuration. After testing has been completed, you may then publish the orb to the CircleCI Orb Registry. CircleCI recommends you use the CircleCI CLI to validate and publish your orb since the the CLI provides the orb-tools orb, with its associated commands, that simplify the validation and publication process.
orb-tools
The orb-tools orb provides a simple and easy way for you to structure and validate your orb before you choose to publish by enabling you to run the following jobs and commands:
| Command/Job | Description |
|---|---|
| orb-tools/pack | This command enables you to use the CircleCI CLI to pack an orb file structure into a single orb yml. |
| orb-tools/validate | This command enables you to use the CircleCI CLI to validate a given orb yml. |
| orb-tools/increment | This command enables you to use the CircleCI CLI to increment the version of an orb in the registry. If the orb does not have a version yet, it starts at 0.0.0. |
| orb-tools/publish | This command uses the CLI to publish an orb to the registry. |
orb-tools/pack
This CLI command enables you to pack the content of an orb prior to publishing. When using this command, you may pass the following parameters with this command:
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| source-dir | Path to the root of the orb source directory to be packed. (for example, my-orb/src/) |
| destination-orb-path | Path including filename of where the packed orb will be written. |
| attach-workspace | Boolean for whether or not to attach to an existing workspace. Default is false. |
| workspace-root | Workspace root path that is either an absolute path or a path relative to the working directory. Defaults to ‘.’ (the working directory) |
| workspace-path | Path of the workspace to persist to relative to workspace-root. Typically this is the same as the destination-orb-path. If the default value of blank is provided, then this job will not persist to a workspace. |
| artifact-path | Path to the directory that should be saved as a job artifact. If the default value of blank is provided, then this job will not save any artifacts. |
orb-tools/validate
This CLI command enables you to validate a given orb to ensure that the orb can be published to the CircleCI Orb Registry. When using this command, you may pass the following parameters with this command:
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| validate | Boolean for whether or not to do validation on the orb. Default is false. |
| checkout | Boolean for whether or not to checkout as a first step. Default is true. |
| attach-workspace | Boolean for whether or not to attach to an existing workspace. Default is false. |
| workspace-root | Workspace root path that is either an absolute path or a path relative to the working directory. Defaults to ‘.’ (the working directory) |
| workspace-path | Path of the workspace to persist to relative to workspace-root. Typically this is the same as the destination-orb-path. If the default value of blank is provided, then this job will not persist to a workspace. |
| artifact-path | Path to the directory that should be saved as a job artifact. If the default value of blank is provided, then this job will not save any artifacts. |
orb-tools/increment
This command uses the CLI to increment the version of an orb in the registry. If the orb does not have a version yet it starts at 0.0.0. The following parameters may be passed with this command:
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| orb-path | Path to an orb file. |
| orb-ref | A version-less orb-ref in the form / |
| segment | The semantic version segment to increment ‘major’ or ‘minor’ or ‘patch’ |
| publish-token-variable | The env var containing your token. Pass this as a literal string such as $ORB_PUBLISHING_TOKEN. Do not paste the actual token into your configuration. If omitted it’s assumed the CLI has already been setup with a valid token. |
| validate | Boolean for whether or not to do validation on the orb. Default is false. |
| checkout | Boolean for whether or not to checkout as a first step. Default is true. |
| attach-workspace | Boolean for whether or not to attach to an existing workspace. Default is false. |
| workspace-root | Workspace root path that is either an absolute path or a path relative to the working directory. Defaults to ‘.’ (the working directory) |
orb-tools/publish
This command is used to publish an orb. The following parameters may be passed with this command:
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| orb-path | Path of the orb file to publish. |
| orb-ref | A full orb-ref in the form of /@ |
| publish-token-variable | The env var containing your publish token. Pass this as a literal string such as $ORB_PUBLISHING_TOKEN. DO NOT paste the actual token into your configuration. If omitted it’s assumed the CLI has already been setup with a valid token. |
| validate | Boolean for whether or not to do validation on the orb. Default is false. |
| checkout | Boolean for whether or not to checkout as a first step. Default is true. |
| attach-workspace | Boolean for whether or not to attach to an existing workspace. Default is false. |
| workspace-root | Workspace root path that is either an absolute path or a path relative to the working directory. Defaults to ‘.’ (the working directory) |
Validate and Publish Example
Below is an example of how to use the orb-tools orb to validate and publish an orb.
version: 2.1
orbs:
orb-tools: circleci/orb-tools@2.0.0
workflows:
btd:
jobs:
- orb-tools/publish:
orb-path: src/orb.yml
orb-ref: circleci/hello-build@dev:${CIRCLE_BRANCH}
publish-token-variable: "$CIRCLECI_DEV_API_TOKEN"
validate: true
In the above example, the Build-Test-Deploy (BTD) workflow runs the orb-tools/validate job first. If the orb is deemed valid, the next step will execute, and orb-tools/publish will execute. When orb-tools/publish succeeds, the job input will contain a success message that the new orb has been published to the CircleCI Orbs Registry.