Finish improvements to the CI configuration for documentation changes (…

…#9460)

* Add bootstrap postjob to CI config

Add a new job to the bootstrap.yml GitHub action config.
This job succeeds if, and only if, all the other bootstrap
jobs succeed.

* Do not run bootstrap CI jobs for documentation changes

The approach was already introduced in #9355 for the validate jobs.
This commit introduces the same change also for the bootstrap jobs.

* Also ignore CONTRIBUTING.md and README.md in CI

We do not run the entire CI suite for documentation changes.
Previously, only changes which were restricted to the 'docs/'
subdirectory were considered to be documentation changes.
With this commit we also recognize changes to README.md and
CONTRIBUTING.md as documentation changes.

* Document improved CI for documentation in CONTRIBUTING.md

The CONTRIBUTING.md file now mentions that documentation changes
do not waste expensive CI resources.

* Recognize all README.md in subdirs as documentation

Expensive CI jobs should not run on changes which affect only
README.md files.

.github/workflows/bootstrap.skip.yml

@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+name: Bootstrap Skip
+
+# This Workflow is special and contains a workaround for a known limitation of GitHub CI.
+#
+# The problem: We don't want to run the "bootstrap" jobs on PRs which contain only changes
+# to the docs, since these jobs take a long time to complete without providing any benefit.
+# We therefore use path-filtering in the workflow triggers for the bootstrap jobs, namely
+# "paths-ignore: doc/**". But the "Bootstrap post job" is a required job, therefore a PR cannot
+# be merged unless the "Bootstrap post job" completes succesfully, which it doesn't do if we 
+# filter it out.
+#
+# The solution: We use a second job with the same name which always returns the exit code 0.
+# The logic implemented for "required" workflows accepts if 1) at least one job with that name
+# runs through, AND 2) If multiple jobs of that name exist, then all jobs of that name have to
+# finish successfully.
+on:
+  push:
+    paths:
+      - 'doc/**'
+      - '**/README.md'
+      - 'CONTRIBUTING.md'
+    branches:
+      - master
+  pull_request:
+    paths:
+      - 'doc/**'
+      - '**/README.md'
+      - 'CONTRIBUTING.md'
+  release:
+    types:
+      - created
+
+jobs:
+  bootstrap-post-job:
+    if: always()
+    name: Bootstrap post job
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    steps:
+      - run: exit 0

.github/workflows/bootstrap.yml

@@ -5,11 +5,22 @@ concurrency:
   group: ${{ github.ref }}-${{ github.workflow }}
   cancel-in-progress: true
 
+# Note: This workflow file contains the required job "Bootstrap post job". We are using path filtering
+# here to ignore PRs which only change documentation. This can cause a problem, see the workflow file
+# "bootstrap.skip.yml" for a description of the problem and the solution provided in that file.
 on:
   push:
+    paths-ignore:
+      - 'doc/**'
+      - '**/README.md'
+      - 'CONTRIBUTING.md'
     branches:
       - master
   pull_request:
+    paths-ignore:
+      - 'doc/**'
+      - '**/README.md'
+      - 'CONTRIBUTING.md'
   release:
     types:
       - created
@@ -66,3 +77,20 @@ jobs:
         with:
           name: cabal-${{ matrix.os }}-${{ matrix.ghc }}-bootstrapped
           path: _build/artifacts/*
+
+  # We use this job as a summary of the workflow
+  # It will fail if any of the previous jobs does it
+  # This way we can use it exclusively in branch protection rules
+  # and abstract away the concrete jobs of the workflow, including their names
+  bootstrap-post-job:
+    if: always()
+    name: Bootstrap post job
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    # IMPORTANT! Any job added to the workflow should be added here too
+    needs: [bootstrap]
+
+    steps:
+      - run: |
+          echo "jobs info: ${{ toJSON(needs) }}"
+      - if: contains(needs.*.result, 'failure') || contains(needs.*.result, 'cancelled')
+        run: exit 1

.github/workflows/validate.skip.yml

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ name: Validate Skip
 # The problem: We don't want to run the "validate" jobs on PRs which contain only changes
 # to the docs, since these jobs take a long time to complete without providing any benefit.
 # We therefore use path-filtering in the workflow triggers for the validate jobs, namely
-# "paths_ignore: doc/**". But the "Validate post job" is a required job, therefore a PR cannot
+# "paths-ignore: doc/**". But the "Validate post job" is a required job, therefore a PR cannot
 # be merged unless the "Validate post job" completes succesfully, which it doesn't do if we 
 # filter it out.
 #
@@ -15,11 +15,17 @@ name: Validate Skip
 # finish successfully.
 on:
   push:
-    paths: 'doc/**'
+    paths:
+      - 'doc/**'
+      - '**/README.md'
+      - 'CONTRIBUTING.md'
     branches:
       - master
   pull_request:
-    paths: 'doc/**'
+    paths:
+      - 'doc/**'
+      - '**/README.md'
+      - 'CONTRIBUTING.md'
   release:
     types:
       - created

.github/workflows/validate.yml

@@ -16,11 +16,17 @@ concurrency:
 # "validate.skip.yml" for a description of the problem and the solution provided in that file.
 on:
   push:
-    paths-ignore: 'doc/**'
+    paths-ignore:
+      - 'doc/**'
+      - '**/README.md'
+      - 'CONTRIBUTING.md'
     branches:
       - master
   pull_request:
-    paths-ignore: 'doc/**'
+    paths-ignore:
+      - 'doc/**'
+      - '**/README.md'
+      - 'CONTRIBUTING.md'
   release:
     types:
       - created

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -51,6 +51,12 @@ Some tips for using GitHub Actions effectively:
   sure everything is OK; otherwise, try to run relevant tests locally
   first.
 
+* If you are only changing documentation in the `docs/` subdirectory,
+  or if you change `README.md` or `CONTRIBUTING.md`, then we only run a
+  small subset of the CI jobs. You can therefore open small PRs with
+  improvements to the documentation without feeling guilty about wasted
+  resources!
+
 * Watch over your jobs on the [GitHub Actions website](http://github.org/haskell/cabal/actions).
   If you know a build of yours is going to fail (because one job has
   already failed), be nice to others and cancel the rest of the jobs,