Running Boot on CI systems

CircleCI v2

CircleCI v2 uses Docker containers to run the tasks. This can result in faster builds and also lifts some limits of the previous environment, like problems in managing caching and inotify watch limits that have caused problems with Boot.

This example uses CircleCI Clojure image which provides additional tools over Clojure docker image. CircleCI image also provides versions with Node and browsers installed, which can be useful for testing Cljs.

version: 2
jobs:
  build:
    working_directory: ~/project
    docker:
      - image: circleci/clojure:boot-2.7.2
      # Use boot-2.7.2-node-browsers for version with both Node and browsers (e.g. Chrome)
    steps:
      - checkout
      - restore_cache:
          key: project-{{checksum "boot.properties" }}-{{ checksum "build.boot" }}
      - run: boot test
      - save_cache:
          paths:
            - ~/.m2
            - ~/.boot/cache/lib
            - ~/.boot/cache/bin
          key: project-{{checksum "boot.properties" }}-{{ checksum "build.boot" }}
    environment:
      BOOT_JVM_OPTIONS: "-Xms512m -Xmx1024m"
      BOOT_WATCHERS_DISABLE: "yes"

CircleCI

Challenges

• Circle saves the cache after dependencies step so files downloaded in test step are not cached
  • Solution: Run tests in dependencies step
• Boot sometimes uses over 4G memory when downloading deps
  • Set _JAVA_OPTIONS
• Boot creates fs watches for the source directories, and CircleCI limits this resource. You may get the error: clojure.lang.ExceptionInfo: User limit of inotify watches reached.
  • Set BOOT_WATCHERS_DISABLE to "yes" to disable Boot's watchers. N.B. this feature is only available in Boot 2.7.2-SNAPSHOT and later.

circle.yml

machine:
  java:
    version: oraclejdk8
  environment:
    # Boot sometimes uses over 4G when dowloading deps
    # Limit could be higher probably, 2-3G?
    _JAVA_OPTIONS: "-Xms512m -Xmx1024m"
    BOOT_WATCHERS_DISABLE: "yes"
dependencies:
  pre:
    # Could use `latest` tag instead of version number
    - curl -L https://github.com/boot-clj/boot-bin/releases/download/2.5.2/boot.sh -o ~/bin/boot
    - chmod +x ~/bin/boot
  override:
    # Run tests here so everything loaded by test task is cached
    - boot run-tests
  cache_directories:
    - "~/bin"
    - "~/.m2"
    - "~/.boot/cache/bin"
    - "~/.boot/cache/lib"

test:
  override:
    # Nothing to run here
    - echo 1

You could also define a deps task in your build.boot:

(deftask deps [])

and run boot deps and boot test in the dependencies and tests section overrides, respectively.

Travis

sudo: false
language: java
script: boot run-tests
install:
  - mkdir -p ~/bin
  - export PATH=~/bin:$PATH
  # Could use `latest` tag instead of version number
  - curl -L https://github.com/boot-clj/boot-bin/releases/download/2.5.2/boot.sh -o ~/bin/boot
  - chmod +x ~/bin/boot
env:
  matrix:
    # Runs tests twice, using Clj 1.7 and 1.8
    - BOOT_CLOJURE_VERSION=1.7.0
    - BOOT_CLOJURE_VERSION=1.8.0
jdk:
  - oraclejdk8
cache:
  directories:
  - $HOME/.m2
  - $HOME/.boot/cache/bin
  - $HOME/.boot/cache/lib
  - $HOME/bin