Projects pericodically migrate either part or the entirety of their CI/CD pipelines to different platforms chasing better pricing, reliability, and features (more info here). This process is lenghty and can result in a drop in productivity, mean projects become locked into their current CI/CD platform.
ACICDTrip automatically migrates input pipelines to a platform chosen by the user. This significantly speeds up the migration process, increasing developer productivity and reducing lock-in.
ACICDTrip was developed using model-driven engineering. Logic is implemented through meta-models and model transformations.
This project is part of my master's thesis. Final grade 20/20. Read dissertation here.
In /cli run gradle installDist.
Executable is cli.bat.
| OPTION | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONAL | NUMBER OF ARGUMENTS |
|---|---|---|---|
| -il | Input language. | False | [1,*] |
| -ol | Output language. | False | 1 |
| -i | Input files. | True | [0,*] |
| -o | Output files. | True | [0,1] |
| -v | Verbose mode. | True | 0 |
| -s | Strict mode. | True | 0 |
| -ef | Custom migration rules file. | True | [0,1] |
| -lf | Log file. | True | [0,1] |
If -i or -o are not provided, the program will read from stdin and write to stdout respectively.
Currently supports GitHub Actions and CircleCI.
ACICDTrip automatically translates pipelines between platforms, as seen below.
If ACICDTrip is run in strict mode, it will only translate a pipeline if it can do so completely. Otherwise, ACICDTrip will migrate any input pipeline, but only partially (according to supported features).
One of the main motivators for platform migration is to reduce the total amount of platforms used by a project. If multiple input pipelines, ACICDTrip will attempt to merge them according to a set of predefined rules.
ACICDTrip supports extension files with transformation rules written in a provided, platform-independent domain-specific language.
Text-to-model transformations (I) convert an input pipeline configuration file (1) to a platform-specific model (2).
That platform-specific model is transformed into a platform-independent model (3) that conforms to the platform-independent meta-model (4) through model-to-model transformations (II).
We then transform the platform-independent model to a model for a different pipeline platform (5).
The translated configuration file (6) is generated from the new platform-specific model through model-to-text transformations (III).
The user can interact with this process with a domain-specific languge to perform model-to-model transformations on the platform-independent and platform-specific models (IV).
Strict mode is implemented using a model validation on the input platform-specific model (2).
Meta-models create the rules for valid instances of pipelines.
There are various meta-models in ACICDTrip. These describe GitHub Actions, CircleCI, and Jenkins pipelines. The most important meta-model is the platform-independent meta-model, as this meta-model lets us create an intermediate representation that is used when migrating platforms.
There is also a meta-model to describe extension files.
/meta-models contains the meta-models that serve as the basis for the program.
Text is parsed to models using either YAML-based or Xtext parsers.
/dsls contains the Xtext projects for text-to-model transformations (where applicable).
Model transformations are able to migrate pipelines between platform-specific and platform-independent representations (and vice-versa). There are also transformations to merge multiple platform-independent pipeline models into one platform-independent model.
Implemented using ATL and EML.
/transformations contains the ATL files used in model-to-model transformations.
We generate new pipeline code files from their platform specific models using Acceleo.
/code-generation contains the Acceleo projects for M2T transformations.
Whenever models need to be validated (e.g., when running strict mode). We use OCL.
/validations contains the OCL files used for validating models.
All previously mentioned technologies are integrated into one cohesive CLI. The reengineering process is automatic.
/cli contains the source code for the command line interface and the logic to integrate the various modeling projects into one cohesive program
- A Two-Level Model-Driven Approach for Reengineering CI/CD Pipelines. André Flores, Hugo Gião, Vasco Amaral, and Jácome Cunha. INForum '24.
- Chronicles of CI/CD: A Deep Dive into its Usage Over Time. Hugo Gião, André Flores, and Jácome Cunha. Manuscript submitted for publication.
- A Meta-Model to Support the Migration and Evolution of CI/CD Pipelines. Hugo Gião, André Flores, Jácome Cunha, Vasco Amaral, Rui Pereira, Gregor Engels, and Stefan Sauer. Manuscript submitted for publication.