ci-cd-quirks

name	ci-cd-quirks
description	Use when confused by CI behavior, investigating why tests did or did not run, or troubleshooting GitHub Actions workflows

CI/CD Quirks and Non-Obvious Behaviors

Overview

This repo's CI has several non-obvious behaviors that can cause confusion when tasks aren't tested or PRs are blocked unexpectedly.

Quirk 1: Tests Only Run for Changed Tasks with a tests/ Directory

The run-task-tests workflow:

1. Detects files changed under tasks/**/*.{yaml,sh} at depth 3
2. Checks if each changed task directory has a tests/ subdirectory
3. Silently skips tasks without tests/

Consequence: You can merge a task with no tests and CI won't complain. The test gate only activates when tests/ exists.

Quirk 2: Templated Files Must Not Be Edited Directly

Files marked with <TEMPLATED FILE!> at the top (e.g., run-task-tests.yaml, test_tekton_tasks.sh) are managed by konflux-ci/task-repo-shared-ci. Edits here will be overwritten on the next sync. Fix upstream.

Quirk 3: Changed-Files Detection Uses Depth 3

The tj-actions/changed-files step uses dir_names_max_depth: "3". This means:

• tasks/linters/yamllint/0.1/yaml-lint.yaml -> detected as tasks/linters/yamllint
• Changes to tests/ files also trigger detection of the parent task

If you add files outside the tasks/ tree (e.g., stepactions/, pipelines/), the test workflow does not detect them — it only watches tasks/**.

Quirk 4: Merge Queue Re-runs Tests

Both pull_request and merge_group triggers are active. Tests run on PR and again on merge queue entry. This is expected but means a slow test suite blocks the merge queue.

Quirk 5: AGENTS.md Line Limit is CI-Enforced

validate-agents-md.yaml fails the PR if AGENTS.md exceeds 60 lines. This is a hard gate on PRs that touch AGENTS.md.

Environment Variables

Variable	Used By	Purpose
KUBECTL_CMD	test_tekton_tasks.sh	Override kubectl binary path (default: kubectl)
TEST_ITEMS	test_tekton_tasks.sh	Space-separated task dirs (alternative to CLI args)
GITHUB_WORKSPACE	CI workflows	Root checkout path in Actions runners

Workflow Summary

Workflow	Watches	Blocks Merge
yaml-lint.yaml	All YAML	Yes
checkton.yaml	Embedded bash in YAML	Yes
validate-task-and-pipeline-yamls.yaml	All tasks/stepactions/pipelines	Yes
run-task-tests.yaml	tasks/**/*.{yaml,sh} with tests/ dir	Yes
validate-agents-md.yaml	AGENTS.md	Yes