tiny-pattern-ts/development/ci.md

CI

.gitea/workflows/ci.yml is the source of truth for the job graph; this file records why it is shaped the way it is.

Pipeline

• build (push to main / tag) — build + correctness + packaging.
• maintain (push to main, non-blocking) — npm run maintain; reports, never fails the build.
• publish (tag) — packaging checks + publish:publint / publish:attw, then the Gitea release page and npm publish (see publishing.md).
• release-gate — on a :rocket: Release x.y.z commit it skips build/maintain, because create:release pushes the tag for the same commit right after and the tag run is authoritative. It uses no Node and stays on the default image.

Runner image

Decision (2026-09)

build / maintain / publish run in gitea.e1nsnull.de/tmu/act-ci:<version> (docker/Dockerfile): the default act image with Node overlaid at the exact /opt/hostedtoolcache layout actions/setup-node probes.

Why

• No job pays the ~50 MB Node fetch, because the probe hits the baked entry.
• The tag must equal the exact .node-version pin, and the image is rebuilt only as part of a Node bump — there is no other trigger.
• Building needs a docker daemon and registry credentials, so it belongs to no feedback tier. That is why it is not an npm run script: no prefix fits, and that is the signal.

Rejected

• Downloading Node in every job — the ~50 MB fetch was the original problem.
• Caching Proxy (Squid or similar) — adds complexity to global setup
• Mounting the tool cache - No invalidation will fill the cache with stale versions

Bumping Node

Bumping Node is one coordinated change, committed as a unit:

1. Edit .node-version to the exact x.y.z — floats like 26 resolve to the latest patch at runtime and bust the baked entry, so scripts/runner-image.sh refuses them.
2. docker login gitea.e1nsnull.de (user + package/access token), then ./scripts/runner-image.sh --push, which reads the version and pushes <IMAGE_REPO>:<version>.
3. Repoint the three container.image tags in .gitea/workflows/ci.yml to that version.

Skipping step 2 fails CI at image pull; skipping step 3 silently reverts to the per-job download.

Image invariants

For the setup-node probe to hit, two things must hold — both easy to break:

The x64.complete marker

Decision (2026-09)

Bake a <version>/<arch>.complete marker next to the Node directory.

Why

• actions/tool-cache accepts a cached tool only when <version>/<arch>.complete exists beside it (tc.find() checks). A bare node/<version>/x64/ is ignored and the download happens anyway. See the comment in docker/Dockerfile.

Tag freshness, with force-pull deliberately off

Decision (2026-09)

Leave act_runner's force_pull disabled.

Why

• The tag encodes only the Node version, and the image is rebuilt only when that changes — so the normal flow always yields a new tag and the runner pulls it.
• Forcing a pull re-pulls the image on every job for no benefit.

Rejected

• Enabling force_pull: it is acceptable to miss a runner-side image change, and a Dockerfile-only change is not worth a per-job pull.

Known issue

• A Dockerfile-only change (like the marker above) re-pushed under an unchanged tag is invisible to the runner, which keeps the old image while the registry shows the new digest. Remove the stale tag on the runner host (docker rmi gitea.e1nsnull.de/tmu/act-ci:<version>); do not reach for force-pull.

Coverage serving

Decision (2026-09)

Serve CI coverage from a shared directory on the runner, with no deploy step in CI.

Why

• The webserver exposes the shared directory and the Gitea docker setup reuses the existing reverse proxy — no upload artifact, no external service.
• Coverage is written to a shared volume keyed by project and tag (for example /docs/tiny-pattern-ts/<tag>/).

Rejected

• Gitea Pages and Codecov: neither was confirmed available or wanted.

Known issue

• Coverage is served for tag pushes only; non-tag pushes (for example main/coverage) are tracked separately.

scripts/precompress.ts emits .br / .gz / .zst sidecars next to text assets. The Gitea pages service (static-web-server with SERVER_COMPRESSION_STATIC=true) serves the sidecar matching Accept-Encoding and falls back to the original.

Decision (2026-09)

Precompress into sidecars rather than per request.

Why

• The assets are static and change only on deploy, so the work is paid once.
• Images, fonts and archives are already compressed; a sidecar would only grow them, so only text extensions are emitted.