action-ros-ci

This action builds and tests a ROS or ROS 2 workspace from source.

1. Requirements
2. Overview
3. Action Output
4. Usage
   1. Build and run tests for your ROS 2 package
   2. Build with a custom repos or rosinstall file
   3. Build a ROS 1 workspace
   4. Skip tests
   5. Use a colcon defaults.yaml file
   6. Do not use --symlink-install when building
   7. Enable Address Sanitizer to automatically report memory issues
   8. Generate and process code coverage data
   9. Store colcon logs as build artifacts
   10. Use with private repos
   11. Skip rosdep install
   12. Interdependent pull requests or merge requests
5. Developing
6. License

Requirements

This action requires the following ROS development tools to be installed (and initialized if applicable) on the CI worker instance:

colcon-common-extensions
colcon-lcov-result  # Optional
colcon-coveragepy-result
colcon-mixin
rosdep
vcstool

On Linux, the setup can be done through ros-tooling/setup-ros, or by running the action in a Docker image containing the appropriate binaries.

Note: for Windows, action-ros-ci currently needs to be run on windows-2019 or needs another action to install Visual Studio 2019.

Overview

The action first assembles a workspace, then runs colcon build, and colcon test in it.

The workspace is built by running:

• vcs import on the repo file(s) specified through the vcs-repo-file-url argument, if any (defaults to none)
• checkout the code under test in the workspace using vcs
• rosdep install for the workspace, to get its dependencies
• run colcon build (optionally limited to packages specified in package-name)
• run colcon test (optionally limited to packages specified in package-name; optionally skipped)

This action requires targeting a ROS or ROS 2 distribution explicitly. This is provided via the target-ros1-distro or target-ros2-distro inputs, respectively. Either or both may be specified, if neither is provided an error will be raised. This input is used to source setup.sh for any installed ROS binaries (e.g. installed using ros-tooling/setup-ros), as well as used as an argument to rosdep install.

Action Output

This action defines an output variable: ros-workspace-directory-name. It contains the path to the root of the ROS workspace assembled by the action.

The variable value should be used to retrieve logs, binaries, etc. after the action completes.

Usage

See action.yml to get the list of inputs supported by this action.

action-ros-ci-template offers a template for using action-ros-ci.

Build and run tests for your ROS 2 package

Here are the two simplest use-cases.

Using dependencies from binaries

In this case, action-ros-ci will rely on setup-ros for installing ROS 2 binaries.

steps:
  - uses: ros-tooling/setup-ros@v0.7
    with:
      required-ros-distributions: jazzy
  - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@v0.3
    with:
      package-name: my_package
      target-ros2-distro: jazzy

Building ROS 2 dependencies from source

In this case, action-ros-ci will build all necessary ROS 2 dependencies of my_package from source.

steps:
  - uses: ros-tooling/setup-ros@v0.7
  - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@v0.3
    with:
      package-name: my_package
      target-ros2-distro: jazzy
      vcs-repo-file-url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros2/ros2/jazzy/ros2.repos

Schedule an action on a specific branch

If you want to continue supporting older ROS releases while developing on an the main branch use acton-ros-ci with ref on a scheduled job. Without setting ref the default branch and most recent commit will be used.

name: Jazzy Source Build
on:
  schedule:
    # At 00:00 on Sunday.
    - cron '0 0 * * 0'

jobs:
  jazzy_source:
    runs_on: ubuntu-latest
    container:
      image: ubuntu:noble
    steps:
      - uses: ros-tooling/setup-ros@v0.7
        with:
          required-ros-distributions: jazzy
      - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@v0.3
        with:
          package-name: my_package
          ref: jazzy
          target-ros2-distro: jazzy
          vcs-repo-file-url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros2/ros2/jazzy/ros2.repos

Build with a custom repos or rosinstall file

You can specify your own repos file using the vcs-repo-file-url input. You can also automatically generate your package's dependencies using the following workflow:

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v4
  - uses: ros-tooling/setup-ros@v0.7
  # Run the generator and output the results to a file.
  - run: |
      rosinstall_generator <package-name> --rosdistro <target-distro> \
      --deps-only --deps --upstream-development > /tmp/deps.repos
  # Pass the file to the action
  - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@v0.3
    with:
      package-name: my_package
      target-ros2-distro: jazzy
      vcs-repo-file-url: /tmp/deps.repos

Note that the actions/checkout step is required when using a custom repos file from your repository.

Build a ROS 1 workspace

Building a ROS 1 workspace works the same way. Simply use target-ros1-distro instead of target-ros2-distro.

steps:
  - uses: ros-tooling/setup-ros@v0.7
    with:
      required-ros-distributions: noetic
  - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@v0.3
    with:
      package-name: my_package
      target-ros1-distro: noetic

Skip tests

To skip tests and code coverage data processing, set the skip-tests option to true.

steps:
  - uses: ros-tooling/setup-ros@v0.7
    with:
      required-ros-distributions: jazzy
  - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@v0.3
    with:
      package-name: my_package
      target-ros2-distro: jazzy
      skip-tests: true

Use a colcon defaults.yaml file

To use a colcon defaults.yaml file, provide a valid JSON string through the colcon-defaults input. This allows using a colcon option/argument that is not exposed by this action's inputs.

steps:
  - uses: ros-tooling/setup-ros@v0.7
    with:
      required-ros-distributions: jazzy
  - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@v0.3
    with:
      package-name: my_package
      target-ros2-distro: jazzy
      colcon-defaults: |
        {
          "build": {
            "cmake-args": [
                "-DMY_CUSTOM_OPTION=ON"
            ]
          }
        }

Do not use --symlink-install when building

By default, --symlink-install is used with colcon build. To avoid this, set the no-symlink-install input to true.

steps:
  - uses: ros-tooling/setup-ros@v0.7
    with:
      required-ros-distributions: jazzy
  - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@v0.3
    with:
      package-name: my_package
      target-ros2-distro: jazzy
      no-symlink-install: true

Enable Address Sanitizer to automatically report memory issues

ASan is an open-source tool developed to automatically report memory corruption bugs.

steps:
  - uses: ros-tooling/setup-ros@v0.7
    with:
      required-ros-distributions: jazzy
  - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@v0.3
    with:
      colcon-defaults: |
        {
          "build": {
            "mixin": ["asan-gcc"]
          }
        }
      colcon-mixin-repository: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/colcon/colcon-mixin-repository/b8436aa16c0bdbc01081b12caa253cbf16e0fb82/index.yaml
      package-name: my_package
      target-ros2-distro: jazzy

To look for detected memory errors, check the build logs for entries containing ERROR: AddressSanitizer. Example:

==9442== ERROR: AddressSanitizer heap-use-after-free on address 0x7f7ddab8c084 at pc 0x403c8c bp 0x7fff87fb82d0 sp 0x7fff87fb82c8

ASan is analyzing memory issues at runtime. ASan diagnostic messages will be emitted by the package tests when they run.

Generate and process code coverage data

Generate code coverage information using lcov and colcon-lcov-result

Generate code coverage information for C/C++ files using the appropriate mixins for gcc. action-ros-ci uses colcon-lcov-result to aggregate generated coverage information.

Flags can be passed manually using, for instance, extra-cmake-args, but it is preferable to use a colcon mixin (through colcon-defaults) to pass the appropriate flags automatically.

steps:
  - uses: ros-tooling/setup-ros@v0.7
    with:
      required-ros-distributions: jazzy
  - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@v0.3
    with:
      package-name: my_package
      target-ros2-distro: jazzy
      colcon-defaults: |
        {
          "build": {
            "mixin": ["coverage-gcc"]
          }
        }
      # If possible, pin the repository in the workflow to a specific commit to avoid
      # changes in colcon-mixin-repository from breaking your tests.
      colcon-mixin-repository: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/colcon/colcon-mixin-repository/b8436aa16c0bdbc01081b12caa253cbf16e0fb82/index.yaml

Generate code coverage information using coveragepy and colcon-coveragepy-result

Generate code coverage information for Python files using the appropriate mixins. action-ros-ci uses colcon-coveragepy-result to aggregate generated coverage information.

steps:
  - uses: ros-tooling/setup-ros@v0.7
    with:
      required-ros-distributions: jazzy
  - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@v0.3
    with:
      package-name: my_package
      target-ros2-distro: jazzy
      colcon-defaults: |
        {
          "build": {
            "mixin": ["coverage-pytest"]
          },
          "test": {
            "mixin": ["coverage-pytest"]
          }
        }
      # If possible, pin the repository in the workflow to a specific commit to avoid
      # changes in colcon-mixin-repository from breaking your tests.
      colcon-mixin-repository: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/colcon/colcon-mixin-repository/b8436aa16c0bdbc01081b12caa253cbf16e0fb82/index.yaml

Integrate action-ros-ci with codecov

The generated code coverage information can be uploaded to codecov.io.

For a private repo, you will need to setup a secret CODECOV_TOKEN in your repository settings. See codecov/codecov-action documentation for more information about how to setup the action.

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v4
  - uses: ros-tooling/setup-ros@v0.7
    with:
      required-ros-distributions: jazzy
  - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@v0.3
    with:
      package-name: my_package
      target-ros2-distro: jazzy
      colcon-defaults: |
        {
          "build": {
            "mixin": ["coverage-gcc", "coverage-pytest"]
          },
          "test": {
            "mixin": ["coverage-pytest"]
          }
        }
      # If possible, pin the repository in the workflow to a specific commit to avoid
      # changes in colcon-mixin-repository from breaking your tests.
      colcon-mixin-repository: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/colcon/colcon-mixin-repository/b8436aa16c0bdbc01081b12caa253cbf16e0fb82/index.yaml
  - uses: codecov/codecov-action@v1.2.1
    with:
      token: ${{ secrets.CODECOV_TOKEN }}  # only needed for private repos
      files: ros_ws/lcov/total_coverage.info,ros_ws/coveragepy/.coverage
      flags: unittests
      name: codecov-umbrella

You will also need to add a codecov.yml configuration file (at the root of your repo):

fixes:
  # For each package in your repo
  - "ros_ws/src/*/my_repo/my_package/::"

The configuration file is required to let codecov map the workspace directory structure to the Git repository structure, and setup the links between codecov and GitHub properly. Note here that actions/checkout is required because codecov/codecov-action needs the codecov.yml file.

Store colcon logs as build artifacts

GitHub workflows can persist data generated in workers during the build using artifacts. action-ros-ci generated colcon logs can be saved as follows:

steps:
  # ...
  - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@v0.3
    id: action_ros_ci_step
    with:
      package-name: ament_copyright
      target-ros2-distro: jazzy
  - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v1
    with:
      name: colcon-logs
      path: ${{ steps.action_ros_ci_step.outputs.ros-workspace-directory-name }}/log
    if: always() # upload the logs even when the build fails

Use with private repos

action-ros-ci needs a token to be able to clone private repositories. If the only private repository your workflow needs is the one against which it runs, using the default GITHUB_TOKEN will work. However, if your workflow also clones other private repositories (e.g., repositories included in repos files provided through vcs-repo-file-url), you will need to generate a personal access token (PAT) with the "repo" scope and add it to your repo's secrets. For example, if this secret is called REPO_TOKEN:

steps:
  # ...
  - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@v0.3
    with:
      package-name: my_package
      # If there are no private dependencies, use the default token, no need to create a PAT or add a secret
      import-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      # If there are private dependencies (e.g., in a file provided through vcs-repo-file-url), a PAT is required
      import-token: ${{ secrets.REPO_TOKEN }}
      # ...

Note that this currently only works for tokens for the GitHub server this action runs on. For example, it will not work with a token for a private repo on github.com when the action is running on an enterprise GitHub server.

Skip rosdep install

Include an option to bypass rosdep install for workflow that uses specific docker image and better control of dependencies. To check for missing dependencies within the workflow's image, user can run with rosdep-check: true flag.

runs-on: ubuntu-latest
container:
  image: ghcr.io/ros-tooling/setup-ros-docker/setup-ros-docker-ubuntu-noble-ros-jazzy-ros-base
steps:
  # ...
  - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@v0.3
    with:
      target-ros2-distro: jazzy
      package-name: ament_copyright
      vcs-repo-file-url: "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros2/ros2/release-jazzy-20240523/ros2.repos"
      skip-rosdep-install: true
      rosdep-check: true

Interdependent pull requests or merge requests

This action allows declaring PR dependencies by providing:

• repos file(s) to override the one(s) defined through the vcs-repo-file-url action input
• supplemental repos file(s) to be used along with the rest

For example, this may be useful when your PR depends on PRs/MRs/branches from other repos for it to work or be properly tested.

Include links in your PR's description using the following format:

action-ros-ci-repos-override: https://gist.github.com/some-user/some.repos
action-ros-ci-repos-override: https://gist.github.com/some-user/some-other.repos
action-ros-ci-repos-supplemental: https://gist.github.com/some-user/some-supplemental.repos
action-ros-ci-repos-supplemental: file://path/to/some/other/supplemental.repos

Developing

For developing and releasing action-ros-ci, see DEVELOPING.md.

License

The scripts and documentation in this project are released under the Apache 2 license.