GitHub YAML Anchor Support

• Current status of #1182.
  • Feature Scheduled?
• Shared actions are a stand-in that work in lots of circumstances.
  • But shared actions don’t share context with the Workspace they are called from.
    • Shared actions require lots of inputs to provide the missing context.
      • These Inputs take up a lot of visual space and are error-prone repetitions.
• Anchors complete the YAML-code reusability story.
  • Anchors fully share the context of the Workflow, with zero introduced security concerns.
  • Anchors enable automatic redundancy aliasing, identifying duplicated structures in a workflow.
    • Automatically created aliases are an invitation to name repeated portions of code.
      • Named portions of code complete the notion of “programming” workflows.
        • The Gödel-Turing semantic jump enables higher-order programming techniques.
    • Redundancy aliasing reduces the total size of the workflow and eliminates sources of error during maintenance.
    • Redundancy aliasing provides a one-line cost for step injections (after the first definition)
      • Example: a security regime injects an evidence-collecting script after every natural step of a workflow.
  • By enabling anchor support GitHub will foster a collection of open-source tools providing high-order programming semantics for Workflows.
    • This ecosystem is akin to the list of public libraries for the GitHub REST API
• Ok, so what happens if GitHub does not enable anchor support?
  • Omnissa will proceed to enjoy the above advantages of anchors and maintain two forms of workflows:
    • The authoritative, minimized, anchor annotated form
      • GitHub will raise errors on these files as having invalid syntax.
    • The derived, expanded, anchor-less form
      • GitHub will accept these files and act on them.
• Invitation:
  • Omnissa is investing in yaml anchors and high-order Workflow programming.
  • Partner with us.
    • Turn on yaml anchor support for our enterprise or for a limited number of repositories in our enterprise.
    • Receive updates on our findings, our frictions, our results.
    • Learn what your strong partner Omnissa can do with best-in-class Workflow programming techniques.

Exhibits:

1. A typical workflow (starting point)
2. The workflow with Auto Aliasing enabled
3. The workflow with named anchors/aliases
4. A programmable context with named aliases
5. A fully expanded form of the workflow with an injected (AOP) security control to report build evidence
6. A minimized form of the workflow with an injected (AOP) security control to report build evidence

Links:

• Public feature request for GitHub yaml parsing to support anchors
• GitHub listing of public libraries for the REST API