Semaphore manages your build, test and deployment workflows with pipelines,
blocks, and promotions. Workflows may be separated with different
pipelines, for example one for tests and another for deployment. Blocks
define what to do at each step in the pipeline. Promotions connect
different pipelines. Semaphore schedules and runs the blocks on
agents. The agent manages the environment the blocks run in. All
configuration is written in YAML and kept in .semaphore/semaphore.yml.
Blocks are the heart of a pipeline. Each block has a task that defines one or many jobs. Jobs define the commands to run.
If your task contains multiple jobs, they are executed in parallel. So, a "test" task could define jobs for "linting", "unit tests", and "integration tests" that run in parallel, making the task finish faster.
Blocks are executed sequentially, waiting for all tasks in the previous block to complete before continuing. Each task can configure its' own environment, including machine type, setting environment variables, and using predefined secrets.
We will see how to define blocks, tasks and jobs later in this guide. You can also refer to the pipeline reference docs for complete information.
Promotions are junctions blocks in your larger workflow. Promotions are commonly used for deployment and promoting builds to different environments. A pipeline can have multiple promotions, and they are always defined at the end of a pipeline. Promoting loads an entirely new pipeline, so you can build up complex pipelines using only configuration files.
We will see how we can manage deployment using promotions later in this guide. You can also refer to the promotions reference docs for complete information.
Secrets are used to store and retrieve sensitive data such as API keys,
which should never be committed to source control. Semaphore securely manages
sensitive data for use in blocks and tasks via encrypted environment variables
or files. You can create a secret using the sem CLI and reference it in
the pipeline YML definition.
We will see how to define and use secrets later in this guide. You can refer to the secrets reference docs for more information.
Semaphore makes sure that there are always agents ready to run all your tasks. When configuring an agent, you can select from a number of memory/CPU combinations and operating system environments.
The standard Ubuntu Linux environment has all the common build tools and
programming languages preinstalled, so you can run your code without overhead.
Agents also provide full sudo access so you can install additional
software when needed.
Let's learn how to customize your pipeline so that it runs the way you want it.