set up gitlab pipelines for phoenix framework

Published in

podiihq

2 min readJan 23, 2018

setting up elixir based phoenix framework pipelines for gitlab to run tests. This guide is based on the gitlab documentation and a blog , I wrote this as I had to make a few adjustments to actually make the pipelines run the tasks successfully

Add `.gitlab-ci.yml` to your project root

Your .gitlab-ci.yml should contain the following content

image: elixir:1.5

services:
  - postgres:9.6

variables:
  MIX_ENV: "test"

before_script:
  # Setup phoenix dependencies
  - apt-get update
  - apt-get install -y postgresql-client
  - mix local.hex --force
  - mix local.rebar --force
  - mix deps.get --only test
  - mix ci.test

test:
  script:
    - mix test

The image tells gitlab to use that particular docker file, feel free to use your elixir version here

The variables section sets the mix environment to the “test” environment for running the tests

The before_script contains commands to be run before the script tasks are executed. In our case we are updating the OS, installing postgres-client then setting up hex and rebar. After that we fetch the dependencies.

If you follow the official doc by gitlab then rebar is not added but this throws out an error

CI.TEST

I introduced this section by defining it in the mix aliases in the mix file. This was because we need to setup the database in the test environment

.....defp aliases do
  [
   "ecto.setup": ["ecto.create", "ecto.migrate", "run priv/repo/seeds.exs"],
   "ecto.reset": ["ecto.drop", "ecto.setup"],
   "test": ["ecto.create --quiet", "ecto.migrate", "test"],
   "ci.test": ["ecto.drop", "ecto.create --quiet", "ecto.migrate", "test"]
    ]
  end

Previously I used mix ci.reset which worked fine only that it would run seed data and add it to the database which caused the tests to fail

The test now defines a task that is supposed to be run by the pipeline. It must contain the word script which tells gitlab what should be run

Update config

In config/test.exs update the hostname to use “postgres” if we are running in “CI” environment

config :my_app, MyApp.Repo,
  hostname: if(System.get_env("CI"), do: "postgres", else: "localhost"),

No previous migration setting

Incase you do not have any active migrations, the tests will not pass as it requires a directory called migrations . Create the directory priv/repo/migrations with a file called .gitkeep

Add, Commit and push

Commit, push then watch your tasks run on gitlab

References

Getting started with GitLab CI/CD

https://medium.com/@nahtnam/using-phoenix-on-gitlab-ci-5a51eec81142