This repo contains information about the various component versions that ship with .NET Core.
The directory that holds information about the current builds that are available for each repo.
At the top-level, the directories are organized in the same way GitHub organizes repos. Here is the pattern:
/build-info/<owner>/<repo>
ex. /build-info/dotnet/corefx
Underneath the <repo>, we list the <channel> for the build.
At a high-level, a channel is a place to store the outputs of a build. A product defines a set of channels that it produces outputs for, and then as builds are executed, the build outputs are put into one or more channels.
Examples of channels using the dotnet/corefx repo:
- master
- release/1.0.0
- release/1.0.0-rc2
- release/1.0.1
- etc
Consumers can subscribe to a channel of a repo, and consume the outputs.
It is important to recognize that while channels usually map closely to official branches in a repo, they
are not in a one-to-one relationship. One goal of the channel concept is that consumers of your repo are
agnostic to your underlying branch structure. Normally consumers will want to consume a version "x.y.z"
build outputs, they don't care what branch they come from. And furthermore, the branch they come from often changes,
especially at the end of a release. For example, at one point the dotnet/corefx master branch was producing
builds for the "1.0.0" release, while the "1.0.0-rc2" release was stabilizing. But then later, when the "1.0.0" release
was stabilizing, a new branch release/1.0.0 was created and that branch started producing builds for that channel.
Consumers don't want to have to switch channels, just because a repo switched branches.
This reasoning shows why it is possible for a single branch to put its builds into multiple channels. If a consumer
always wanted to track the "latest and greatest" builds from the dotnet/corefx repo, they could subscribe to the
master channel, and they would always get the newest builds with the latest code and all the bug fixes. However,
there are other consumers that want to strictly get the "current stabilizing release + 1" bits from dotnet/corefx,
but not necessarily always from master. For example, while "1.0.0-rc2" is stabilizing, I want to consume the "1.0.0"
release bits and continue to consume them even when "1.0.0" branches into a release branch.
Each channel directory contains files about each build it wants to track. This can be referred to as "Build Pointers". Typical builds that are tracked are:
- Latest
- LKG (or Last Known Good)
- Release (The build that was released from this channel)
But each owner/repo/channel can define builds and build names that make sense for them to track.
Keep in mind that these names are public, and consumers will be taking dependencies on channel names and build pointer names. You should consider renaming these folders/files like you would any other breaking change (it needs plenty of communication).
If NuGet packages are being produced by your repo, a suggestion is to list the URL of the myget/nuget feed where consumers can get those NuGet packages along with the package Ids and Versions. This allows for automation to find these packages without having to hard-code the feed themselves.
An application that coordinates between multiple repositories. It has the ability to automate any process that requires cross-repo communication. For example, when a new LKG build of one repo is available, it can signal any dependent repos to start using this new build.