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Nanosoldier.jl

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This package contains the infrastructure powering the @nanosoldier CI bot used by the Julia language.

Quick start

If you're a collaborator in the JuliaLang/julia repository, you can submit CI jobs by commenting on commits or pull requests. The @nanosoldier bot looks for a special "trigger phrase" in your comment, and if the trigger phrase is found, it is parsed by the bot to configure and submit a CI job.

The trigger phrase syntax is:

@nanosoldier `command(args..., kwargs...)`

Backticks are mandatory. If the job is accepted, a status update will be pushed to the commit you commented on (look for a yellow dot, green check or red cross). Once the job finishes, @nanosoldier will reply with a comment, and upload results to the NanosoldierReports repository.

There are two kinds of jobs you can invoke: benchmark jobs, which run the BaseBenchmarks.jl suite, and package test jobs which rely on PkgEval.jl to run the test suite of all registered packages.

Note that only one job can be triggered per comment.

One of the most common invocations runs all benchmarks on your PR, comparing against the current Julia master branch:

@nanosoldier `runbenchmarks()`

Similarly, you can run all package tests, e.g. if you suspect your PR might be breaking:

@nanosoldier `runtests()`

Both operations take a long time, so it might be wise to restrict which benchmarks you want to run, or which packages you want to test:

@nanosoldier `runbenchmarks("linalg")`

@nanosoldier `runtests(["JSON", "Crayons"])`

When a job is completed, @nanosoldier will reply to your comment to tell you how the job went and link you to any relevant results.

Available job types

CI jobs are implemented in this package as subtypes of Nanosoldier.AbstractJob. See here for a description of the interface new job types need to implement.

BenchmarkJob

Execution Cycle

A BenchmarkJob has the following execution cycle:

  1. Pull in the JuliaLang/julia repository and build the commit specified by the context of the trigger phrase.
  2. Using the new Julia build, fetch the nanosoldier branch of the BaseBenchmarks repository and run the benchmarks specified by the trigger phrase.
  3. If the trigger phrase specifies a commit to compare against, build that version of Julia and perform step 2 using the comparison build.
  4. Upload a markdown report to the NanosoldierReports repository.

Trigger Syntax

A BenchmarkJob is triggered with the following syntax:

@nanosoldier `runbenchmarks(tag_predicate, vs = "ref")`

The vs keyword argument is optional; if invoked from a pull request, it will be derived automatically from the merge base. In other cases, the comparison step (step 3 above) will be skipped.

The tag predicate is used to decide which benchmarks to run, and supports the syntax defined by the tagging system implemented in the BenchmarkTools package. Additionally, you can run all benchmarks by using the keyword ALL, e.g. runbenchmarks(ALL), which is the same as specifying no predicate at all.

The vs keyword argument takes a reference string which can points to a Julia commit to compare against. The following syntax is supported for reference string:

Benchmark Results

Once a BenchmarkJob is complete, the results are uploaded to the NanosoldierReports repository. Each job has its own directory for results. This directory contains the following items:

Comment Examples

Here are some examples of comments that trigger a BenchmarkJob in various contexts:

I want to run benchmarks tagged "array" on the current commit.

@nanosoldier `runbenchmarks("array")`

If this comment is on a specific commit, benchmarks will run on that commit. If
it's in a PR, they will run on the head/merge commit of the PR. If it's on a diff,
they will run on the commit associated with the diff.

I want to run benchmarks tagged "array" on the current commit, and compare the results
with the results of running benchmarks on commit 858dee2b09d6a01cb5a2e4fb2444dd6bed469b7f.

@nanosoldier `runbenchmarks("array", vs = "@858dee2b09d6a01cb5a2e4fb2444dd6bed469b7f")`

I want to run benchmarks tagged "array", but not "simd" or "linalg", on the
current commit. I want to compare the results against those of the release-0.4
branch.

@nanosoldier `runbenchmarks("array" && !("simd" || "linalg"), vs = ":release-0.4")`

I want to run all benchmarks on the current commit. I want to compare the results
against a commit on my fork.

@nanosoldier `runbenchmarks(vs = "christopher-dG/julia@c70ab26bb677c92f0d8e0ae41c3035217a4b111f")`

I want to run all benchmarks on the current commit. I want to compare the results
against the head commit of my fork's branch.

@nanosoldier `runbenchmarks(vs = "christopher-dG/julia:mybranch")`

PkgEvalJob

Execution Cycle

A PkgEvalJob has the following execution cycle:

  1. Pull in the JuliaLang/julia repository and build the commit specified by the context of the trigger phrase.
  2. Using the new Julia build, test the packages from the General registry as specified by the trigger phrase.
  3. If the trigger phrase specifies a commit to compare against, build that version of Julia and perform step 2 using the comparison build.
  4. Upload a markdown report to the NanosoldierReports repository.

Trigger Syntax

A PkgEvalJob is triggered with the following syntax:

@nanosoldier `runtests(package_selection, vs = "ref")`

The package selection argument is used to decide which packages to test. It should be a list of package names, e.g. ["Example"], that will be looked up in the registry. Additionally, you can test all packages in the registry by using the keyword ALL, e.g. runtests(ALL), which is the same as not providing a package selection argument at all.

The vs keyword argument is again optional. Its syntax and behavior is identical to the BenchmarkJob vs keyword argument.

Both sides of the comparison can be further configured by using respectively the configuration and vs_configuration arguments. These options expect a named tuple where the elements correspond to fields of the PkgEval.Configuration type.

For example, a common configuration is to include buildflags that enable assertions:

@nanosoldier `runtests(vs = "%self", configuration = (buildflags=["LLVM_ASSERTIONS=1", "FORCE_ASSERTIONS=1"],))`

Another useful example makes PkgEval run under rr and use a Julia debug build for a better debugging experience:

@nanosoldier `runtests(configuration = (buildflags=["JULIA_BUILD_MODE=debug"], julia_binary="julia-debug", rr=true))`

If no configuration arguments are specified, the defaults as specified by the PkgEval.Configuration constructor are used.

Reverse-CI for packages

Nanosoldier.jl also supports testing for regression introduced by package changes. This feature is currently only enabled on select repositories (contact @maleadt if you think this is valuable for your package).

The interface for testing package changes is identical to testing Julia changes: just invoke Nanosoldier by commenting with an appropriate trigger phrase on a commit, issue or pull request on a package repository. The execution cycle is slightly different:

Acknowledgements

The development of the Nanosoldier benchmarking platform was supported in part by the US Army Research Office through the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies under Contract No. W911NF-07-D0004.