When using yaml aliases, CircleCI executor docker images not updated

[rarkins]

Discussed in #33657

^{Originally posted by yanns January 17, 2025}

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Minimal reproduction: https://github.com/yanns/circleci-executors

When using yaml aliases, the docker images used for CircleCI executors are not updated anymore.

aliases:
  - &working_directory ~/circleci-executors

executors:
  rust-docker:
    docker:
      - image: cimg/rust:1.82.0
    working_directory: *working_directory

Logs (if relevant)

EBUG: Error extracting circleci images
{
  "err": {
    "message": "Schema error",
    "stack": "ZodError: Schema error\n    at Object.get error [as error] (/usr/local/renovate/node_modules/.pnpm/zod@3.24.1/node_modules/zod/lib/types.js:55:31)\n    at ZodObject.parse (/usr/local/renovate/node_modules/.pnpm/zod@3.24.1/node_modules/zod/lib/types.js:131:22)\n    at parseSingleYaml (/usr/local/renovate/lib/util/yaml.ts:136:17)\n    at Object.extractPackageFile (/usr/local/renovate/lib/modules/manager/circleci/extract.ts:61:35)\n    at extractPackageFile (/usr/local/renovate/lib/modules/manager/index.ts:75:9)\n    at getManagerPackageFiles (/usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/repository/extract/manager-files.ts:58:43)\n    at /usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/repository/extract/index.ts:57:28\n    at async Promise.all (index 0)\n    at extractAllDependencies (/usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/repository/extract/index.ts:54:26)\n    at extract (/usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/repository/process/extract-update.ts:160:28)\n    at extractDependencies (/usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/repository/process/index.ts:158:26)\n    at Object.renovateRepository (/usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/repository/index.ts:71:9)\n    at attributes.repository (/usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/global/index.ts:206:11)\n    at start (/usr/local/renovate/lib/workers/global/index.ts:191:7)\n    at /usr/local/renovate/lib/renovate.ts:19:22",
    "issues": {
      "aliases": {
        "0": "Expected object, received string"
      }
    }
  }
  "packageFile": ".circleci/config.yml"
}

[jamesbassett]

It looks like there was an incorrect assumption when changing the YAML parsing of CircleCI configs (i.e. here) that aliases is a standard configuration key and contains a docker image.

It's not part of the CircleCI reference and is used (in renovate's tests, as well as in my build) as a place to store reusable YAML anchors.

I'm using it as a reusable YAML anchor

aliases:
  - &notify_on_failure
    slack/notify:
      channel: my-channel
      branch_pattern: main
      event: fail

So I can use it multiple times in my build

jobs:
  build:
    steps:
      - another-build-step
      - *notify_on_failure

But getting the same error log as above (as this doesn't conform to the zod schema).

The workaround in the meantime is to rename this key to anything else, i.e. anchors

[yanns]

A PR was opened by renovate: yanns/circleci-executors#2
Is this issue fixed?

[zharinov]

A PR was opened by renovate: yanns/circleci-executors#2 Is this issue fixed?

Yes