Configuration & Manifests

All pipelines are linked to an upstream Git repository (Github, Gitlab, Bitbucket, etc.). This repository contains all the required manifests and is regarded as the source of truth for pipelines. This makes pipeline changes easily auditable and comparable, and also keeps the control of manifests in the hands of the user.

Repo Structure

The repository is expected to be as structured as follows:

file1.yml
root_folder/ #Root folder entered when registering pipeline
  pipeline.yaml
  parameters.yaml
  folder/
    file2.yml

In this example, file1.yml and root_folder are both at the root level of the repository. GreenOps supports specifying a path to a specific folder in a repo, allowing multiple configurations to be stored in the same repository.

There are two required files that are expected to be there in the folder path specified when creating a pipeline (in this case it is root_folder):

• pipeline.yaml - This holds the actual pipeline manifest, which is in the form of an Argo Workflow.
• params.yaml - Workflows are often reused, for different applications, so this is a separate file where different parameters can be entered for the same boilerplate workflow. GreenOps will automatically inject the parameters into the workflow during runtime.

Both of these files can be edited as YAML if desired, or via the no-code GreenOps UI.

Here is an example of a pipeline.yaml and params.yaml file:

params.yaml:

arguments:
  parameters:
    - name: application-name
      value: testapp-dev
    - name: revision
      value: main
    - name: argocd-server-address
      value: 192.168.64.21:3264

pipeline.yaml:

metadata:
  generateName: deploy-testapp-
  namespace: argo
spec:
  entrypoint: starter
  templates:
  - name: starter
    steps:
    - - name: deploy-to-dev
        templateRef:
          name: argocd-step
          template: argocd-sync-and-wait
        arguments:
          parameters:
          - name: application-name
            value: "{{workflow.parameters.application-name}}"
          - name: revision
            value: "{{workflow.parameters.revision}}"
          - name: argocd-server-address
            value: "{{workflow.parameters.argocd-server-address}}"

This pipeline simply syncs an Argo CD application called testapp-dev. The Argo Workflow references a template called argocd-sync-and-wait which carries out this action. GreenOps injects the variables specified in the params.yaml file into the workflow before running it. As this example illustrates, it makes workflows extremely portable and simple to reuse.

Using the UI

The deployment pipeline manifests can be created/updated by writing YAML directly, or by using the GreenOps UI.

The manifest creator uses templates to get the information for each step.

In this example, the argocd-sync-and-wait template was selected, and the parameters are being filled out for the pipeline. Clicking on the pipeline.yaml and params.yaml tabs in the top right corner would provide the YAML versions of the manifests.

The UI supports any number of pipelines and any number of steps. Complex pipelines with parallel executions, DAGs, and custom steps are supported, as well as simple linear pipelines. An example of a simple DAG is shown below.