buildcharts 0.0.1

What is BuildCharts?

buildcharts is a framework for defining and generating CI/CD pipelines using declarative metadata (build.yaml) and templated pipeline definitions stored as OCI artifacts (similar to Helm charts). It enables scalable, centralized, and consistent build processes.

Features

• Scaling: Handle 150+ similar apps with shared pipeline logic.
• Control: Centralize logic like adding Datadog agents or custom validation to all builds.
• Extensibility: You can write dependency resolution plugins to block known-bad versions.

Core Concepts

• build.yaml: Project-specific metadata.
• build.lock.yaml: Lock file that pins exact templates/versions used (like package-lock.json or Chart.lock).
• Chart Templates: Stored as OCI images with Helm-like templates (but for CI/CD instead of K8s). You use a custom renderer (buildcharts) instead of real Helm.
• Dynamic Pipeline Generation: Pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps) are generated dynamically based on the metadata file and templates.
• Artifact Output Support: Supports Docker images, NuGet packages, test results, etc.

Templates support:

• 🐳 Docker image builds
• 🧪 Test runners
• 📦 NuGet packaging
• 📂 Artifact collection
• 🧰 Custom plugins (versioning, summaries, contributors, etc.)

🔄 Dependency Updates & Channels

• Integrated with Renovate (or Maestro) to update build.yaml/Chart.lock via PRs when templates/dependencies change.
• Uses OCI tags and optional channel: fields to control release flows (e.g., dev/staging/prod templates or NuGet channels).
• Renovate can track changes like it does with Helm or NuGet and trigger the pipeline generator accordingly.

Links

• https://github.com/dotnet/arcade
• https://github.com/facebook/buck
• https://github.com/twitter/pants
• https://nebula-plugins.github.io
• https://kustomizer.dev
• https://kustomizer.dev/guides/fluxcd
• https://docs.docker.com/build/bake/contexts/#deduplicate-context-transfer
• https://docs.docker.com/build/cache/backends/registry/
• https://github.com/docker/metadata-action?tab=readme-ov-file

CLI

Supports dynamic generation at runtime (e.g., pipeline generates new pipelines via API or buildx bake).

buildcharts
  init         # scaffold
  update       # resolve templates + create lock
  generate     # render CI/CD pipelines
  run          # trigger or test the pipelines
  diff         # show changes vs lock
  validate     # schema and template check
  clean        # remove generated artifacts
  version      # version info
  package      # package chart
  pull         # pull chart
    - helm pull oci://docker.io/buildcharts/dotnet-build --version 0.0.1

• $env:VERSION="1.2.3"; $env:COMMIT="abc123"; docker buildx bake