How to retrieve GitVersion variables in GitLab CI ?

[pitetb]

Hello,

Thanks for this amazing library.

I'am using dotnet core 3.1 for a library project. I added GitVersionTask nuget package in my project. I setup a custom Gitversion.yml file to manage branches and my workflow.
When I generate the project with dotnet build or dotnet pack commands locally (windows env), everything is fine.

Then, I try to put use the Gitlab-Ci tool to generate my project. My runner is the official microsoft linux container: mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/sdk.
The build is working, the nuget package has the correct name following rules defined in my GitVersion.yml file... However, I would like to access later in my CI script to all the variables generated by GitVersion. How can I do that ?
The documentation is not very clear for me, apparently Gitversion task should have generated a 'gitversion.properties' file but I can't find it. The "Gitversion variables" (like GitVersion_NuGetVersion, etc..) are not exported in my environment variables.

How can I do to have access to them to use them later in my CI file?

Thank you for any help.

[asbjornu]

When GitVersion is executed, it usually just serves one purpose through its output argument. When run in a CI environment, the default is to output the version variables to the CI server and not to the environment. To get hold of the version variables, you might need to execute GitVersion one more time with /output json. We have #983 to track the wish for writing version variables to disk regardless of the output type.

[arturcic]

@asbjornu what if we allow both /output json and /output buildserver at the same time? meaning we allow output to have a list of options

[asbjornu]

I don't want to think about how hacky that will be to implement in the current argument parser, but that's a good alternative, @arturcic.

[arturcic]

At least something to consider

[pitetb]

Hello,
Thank you for your answer!
On my understanding, a file with all variables is already created with extension ".g.cs" on each run. Why do not just provide an option to copy it with to a custom path with the name "gitversion.properties"? Then any CI server can read it or consider it as an artefact to use it later...

[asbjornu]

I just discovered #12, but a search of WriteEnvVariable through the current codebase yields no results. Not sure why this has been removed.

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. After 30 days from now, it will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[gep13]

@asbjornu I wanted to re-open this, as I thought writing environment variables was still something that GitVersion did, I know I made use of this in the past.

This came up recently in the conversation with @mholo65 who also expected that this functionality existed.

@arturcic Do you know when this functionality, i.e. the writing of process environment variables, was removed?

[arturcic]

@gep13 actually it was not removed see
https://github.com/GitTools/GitVersion/blob/master/src/GitVersionCore/BuildAgents/GitLabCi.cs#L31
https://github.com/GitTools/GitVersion/blob/master/src/GitVersionCore/Core/BuildAgentBase.cs#L39 and

GitVersion/src/GitVersionCore/VersionConverters/OutputGenerator/OutputGenerator.cs

Line 35 in d0a1bea

buildAgent?.WriteIntegration(console.WriteLine, variables, versionContext.Value.Configuration.UpdateBuildNumber);

The last piece is writing to the console, in the build agent specific syntax. Maybe we need to adjust that. But as far as I know different build agents have different mechanism to set the environment varibales that are available to other steps/jobs

[gep13]

@artuic just to confirm though... running locally, I wouldn't see those environment variables being created, right?

[arturcic]

as far as I remember no, as you are not running in a build agent