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* Action-controlled execution properties
** Motivation
*** Varying execution platforms
It is a common situation that software is developed for one platform,
but it is desirable to build on a different one. For example,
the other platform could be faster (common theme when developing
for embedded devices), cheaper, or simply available in larger
quantities. The standard solution for these kind of situations is
cross compiling: the binary is completely built on one platform,
while being intended to run on a different one. This can be achieved
by constructing the compiler invocations accordingly and is already
built into our rules (at least for ~C~ and ~C++~).
The situation changes, however, once testing (especially end-to-end
testing) comes into play. Here, we actually have to run the built
binary---and do so on the target architecture. Nevertheless, we
still want to offload as much as possible of the work to the other
platform and perform only the actual test execution on the target
platform. This requires a single build executing actions on two (or
more) platforms.
*** Varying execution times
**** Calls to foreign build systems
Often, third-party dependencies that natively build with a different
build system and don't change to often (yet often enough to not have
them part of the build image) are simply put in a single action, so
that they get built only once, and then stay in cache for everyone.
This is precisely, what our ~rules-cc~ rules like ~["CC/foreign/make",
"library"]~ and ~["CC/foreign/cmake", "library"]~ do.
For those compound actions, we of course expect them to run longer
than normal actions that only consist of a single compiler or
linker invocation. Giving an absolute amount of time needed for
such an action is not reasonable, as that very much depends on the
underlying hardware. However, it is reasonable to give a number
"typical" actions this compound action corresponds to.
**** Long-running end-to-end tests
A similar situation where a significantly longer action is needed in
a build otherwise consisting of short actions are end-to-end tests.
Test using the final binary might have a complex set up, potentially
involving several instances running to test communication, and
require a lengthy sequence of interactions to get into the situation
that is to be tested, or to verify the absence of degrading of the
service under high load or extended usage.
** Status Quo
Action can at the moment specify
- the actual action, i.e., inputs, outputs, and the command vector,
- the environment variables,
- a property that the action can fail (e.g., for test actions), and
- a property that the action is not to be taken from cache (e.g.,
testing for flakiness).
No other properties can be set by the action itself. In particular,
remote-execution properties and timeout are equal for all actions
of a build.
** Proposed changes
*** Extension of the ~"ACTION"~ function
We propose to extend the ~"ACTION"~ function available in the rule
definition by the following attributes. All of the new attributes
are optional, and the default is taken to reflect the status quo.
Hence, the proposed changes are backwards compatible.
**** ~"execution properties"~
This value has to evaluate to a map of strings; if not given, the
empty map is taken as default. This map is taken as a union with
any remote-execution properties specified at the invocation of
the build (if keys are defined both, for the entire build and in
~"execution properties"~ of a specific action, the latter takes
precedence).
Local execution continues to any execution properties specified.
However, with the auxiliary change to ~just~ described later,
such execution properties can also influence a build that is local
by default.
**** ~"timeout scaling"~
If given, the value has to be a number greater or equal than ~1.0~,
with ~1.0~ taken as default. The action timeout specified for this
build (the default value, or whatever is specified on the command
line) is multiplied by the given factor and taken as timeout for
this action. This applies for both, local and remote builds.
*** ~just~ to support dispatching based on remote-execution properties
In simple setups, like using ~just execute~, the remote execution
is not capable of dispatching to different workers based on
remote-execution properties. To nevertheless have the benefits of
using different execution environments, ~just~ will allow an optional
configuration file to be passed on the command line via a new option
~--endpoint-configuration~. This configuration file will contain a
list of pairs of remote-execution properties and remote-execution
endpoints. The first matching entry (i.e., the first entry where
the remote-execution property map coincides with the given map when
restricted to its domain) determines the remote-execution endpoint to
be used; if no entry matches, the default remote-execution endpoint
is used. In any case, the remote-execution properties are forwarded
to the chosen remote-execution endpoint without modification.
When connecting a non-standard remote-execution endpoint, ~just~ will
ensure that the applicable CAS of that endpoint will have all the
needed artifacts for that action. It will also transfer all result
artifacts back to the CAS of the default remote-execution endpoint.
~just serve~ (once implemented) will also support this new option. As
with the default execution endpoint, there is the understanding that
the client uses the same configuration as the ~just serve~ endpoint.
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