Batch spec cheat sheet

Overview

There are some common patterns that we reuse all the time when writing batch specs. In this document we collect these patterns to make it easy for others to copy and reuse them. See our own curated collection of batch change examples for even more complete examples of batch specs.

Since most of the examples here make use of batch spec templating, be sure to also take a look at that page.

Loop over search result paths in shell script

on:
  - repositoriesMatchingQuery: OLD-VALUE

steps:
  - run: |
      for file in "${{repository.search_result_paths}}";
      do
        sed -i 's/OLD-VALUE/NEW-VALUE/g;' "${file}"
      done      
    container: alpine:3

Put search result paths in file and loop over them

on:
  - repositoriesMatchingQuery: OLD-VALUE

steps:
  - run: |
      cat /tmp/search-results | while read file;
      do
        sed -i 's/OLD-VALUE/NEW-VALUE/g;' "${file}"
      done      
    container: alpine:3
    files:
      /tmp/search-results: ${{ join repository.search_result_paths "\n" }}

Use search result paths as arguments for single command

on:
  - repositoriesMatchingQuery: lang:go fmt.Sprintf("%d", :[v]) patterntype:structural -file:vendor count:10

steps:
  - run: comby -in-place 'fmt.Sprintf("%d", :[v])' 'strconv.Itoa(:[v])' ${{ join repository.search_result_paths " " }}
    container: comby/comby

Format files modified by previous step

steps:
  - run: comby -in-place 'fmt.Sprintf("%d", :[v])' 'strconv.Itoa(:[v])' ${{ join repository.search_result_paths " " }}
    container: comby/comby
  - run: goimports -w ${{ join previous_step.modified_files " " }}
    container: unibeautify/goimports

Dynamically set branch name based on workspace

workspaces:
  - rootAtLocationOf: package.json
    in: github.com/sourcegraph/*

steps:
  # [... other steps ... ]
  - run:  if [[ -f "package.json" ]]; then cat package.json | jq -j .name; fi
    container: jiapantw/jq-alpine:latest
    outputs:
      projectName:
        value: ${{ step.stdout }}

changesetTemplate:
  # [...]

  # If we have an `outputs.projectName` we use it, otherwise we append the path
  # of the workspace. If the path is emtpy (as is the case in the root folder),
  # we ignore it.
  branch: |
    ${{ if eq outputs.projectName "" }}
    ${{ join_if "-" "thorsten/workspace-discovery" (replace steps.path "/" "-") }}
    ${{ else }}
    thorsten/workspace-discovery-${{ outputs.projectName }}
    ${{ end }}    

Process search result paths with script

steps:
  - run: |
      for result in "${{ join repository.search_result_paths " " }}"; do
        ruby /tmp/script "${result}" > "${result}.new"
        mv ${result}.new "${result}"
      done;      
    container: ruby
    files:
      /tmp/script: |
        #! /usr/bin/env ruby
        require 'yaml';
        content = YAML.load(ARGF.read)
        content['batchchanges'] = 'say hello'
        puts YAML.dump(content)        

Use separate file as config file for command

steps:
  - run: comby -in-place -matcher .go -config /tmp/comby-conf.toml -f ${{ join repository.search_result_paths "," }}
    container: comby/comby
    files:
      /tmp/comby-conf.toml: |
        [log_to_log15]
        match='log.Printf(":[format]", :[args])'
        rewrite='log15.Warn(":[format]", :[args])'
        rule='where
        rewrite :[format] { "%:[[_]] " -> "" },
        rewrite :[format] { " %:[[_]]" -> "" },
        rewrite :[args] { ":[arg~[a-zA-Z0-9.()]+]" -> "\":[arg]\", :[arg]" }'        

Publish only changesets on specific branches

changesetTemplate:
  # [...]
  published:
    - github.com/my-org/my-repo@my-branch-name: draft

Create new files in repository

steps:
  - run: cat /tmp/global-gitignore >> .gitignore
    container: alpine:3
    files:
      /tmp/global-gitignore: |
        # Vim
        *.swp
        # JetBrains/IntelliJ
        .idea
        # Emacs
        *~
        \#*\#
        /.emacs.desktop
        /.emacs.desktop.lock
        .\#*
        .dir-locals.el        

Execute steps only in repositories matching name

steps:
  # [... other steps ...]
  - run: echo "name contains sourcegraph-testing" >> message.txt
    if: ${{ matches repository.name "*sourcegraph-testing*" }}
    container: alpine:3

Execute steps based on output of previous command

steps:
  - run:  if [[ -f "go.mod" ]]; then echo "true"; else echo "false"; fi
    container: alpine:3
    outputs:
      goModExists:
        value: ${{ step.stdout }}

  - run: go fmt ./...
    container: golang
    if: ${{ outputs.goModExists }}

Write a GitHub Actions workflow that includes GitHub expression syntax

steps:
  - container: alpine:3
    run: |
      #!/usr/bin/env bash

      mkdir -p .github/workflows

      cat <<EOF >.github/workflows/lsif.yml
      name: LSIF
      on:
        - push
      jobs:
        lsif-go:
          runs-on: ubuntu-latest
          container: sourcegraph/lsif-go
          steps:
            - uses: actions/checkout@v1
            - name: Generate LSIF data
              run: lsif-go
            - name: Upload LSIF data
              run: src lsif upload -github-token=${{ "\\${{secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN}}" }}
      EOF      

Since GitHub expression syntax conflicts with Sourcegraph's own template expression syntax, including the expression again as a quoted string within a template expression means that the inner expression will be output as a string (effectively, "ignoring" the contents of the inner expression). For run: fields specifically, to avoid the shell also interpreting the GitHub expression as a variable when executing the script, we need to escape the quoted $ with two backslashes: firstly for the shell script itself, and secondly to escape the backslash within the template expression string.

To use the literal sequence ${{ }} in non-run: fields of the batch spec that supports templating, quoted strings are normally sufficient: ${{ "${{ leave me alone! }}" }}

List what files were modified by the batch change in the changeset

changesetTemplate:
  title: A batch change
  body: | 
    This batch change modifies:
      ${{ range $index, $file := steps.modified_files }}
       - ${{ $file }}
      ${{ end }}