Customizing the Build Environment#

Semaphore runs each job in a clean and isolated environment. Three types of build environments are available:

  • The Linux Ubuntu environment that includes common tools needed by projects. It offers full sudo access to the virtual machine.

  • The MacOS environment that includes common tools needed for iOS development. It offers full sudo access to the virtual machine.

  • The Docker environment that allows you to run your jobs in a custom Docker images.

All environments come with a fast network so you can install any additional software and customize the environment however you need.

Choosing the Machine Type and OS Image#

To use the Linux Ubuntu build environment, define the agent's machine type and OS image in your pipeline YAML file:

# .semaphore/semaphore.yml

agent:
  machine:
    type: e1-standard-2    # Linux machine type with 2 vCPUs, 4 GB of RAM
    os_image: ubuntu1804   # The Ubuntu 18.04 OS image.

Alternatively, if you want to run a MacOS based pipeline, configure it with:

# .semaphore/semaphore.yml

agent:
  machine:
    type: a1-standard-2    # Apple machine type with 2 vCPUs, 4 GB of RAM
    os_image: macos-mojave-xcode11 # MacOS Mojave os image

If you prefer to have a fully custom, containerized environment, define one or more Docker images in your pipeline file:

# .semaphore/semaphore.yml

agent:
  machine:
    type: e1-standard-2

  containers:
    - name: main             # The first container will be used to run your jobs
      image: bitnami/rails   # use any Docker image

    - name: db               # Additional containers can be started
      image: postgres:9.6    # and will be available in the first image

If your custom Docker images are privately hosted, follow the private Docker images section in the Custom CI/CD environment to set up your access credentials on Semaphore.

Installing additional dependencies#

Let's say that your project uses Bats, which is hosted on GitHub, to test your Bash scripts. You can easily make it available on Semaphore by copying the installation commands from the project's Readme into your prologue:

# .semaphore/semaphore.yml

blocks:
  - name: "Test"
    task:
      prologue:
        commands:
          - git clone https://github.com/bats-core/bats-core.git
          - cd bats-core
          - sudo ./install.sh /usr/local
      jobs:
        - name: Tests
          commands:
            - bats addition.bats

Next steps#

Running a CI build in practice usually requires one or more running Databases, Cache servers, or other background services like RabbitMQ or Kafka.

Let's learn how to do that in the next section.