Error in your pipeline. Step is empty, null or missing

[warmannj]

I have the following error when running my pipeline: 

Configuration error

There is an error in your bitbucket-pipelines.yml at [pipelines > branches > develop > 1]. To be precise: Step is empty, null, or missing.

Another user reported a similar issue earlier. The answer given there does not work for me as the issue was with indentation. My file does not have that error.

Here's my file: 

definitions:
  steps:
    - step: &deployToECS
      name: Deploy to ECS
      services:
        - docker
      script: # Modify the commands below to build your repository.
        - pipe: atlassian/aws-ecs-deploy:1.0.4
          variables:
            AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: $AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
            AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: $AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
            AWS_DEFAULT_REGION: $AWS_REGION
            CLUSTER_NAME: '$ECS_CLUSTER_NAME'
            SERVICE_NAME: '$ECS_SERVICE_NAME'
            TASK_DEFINITION: '$ECS_TASK_DEFINITION_FILE'
            DEBUG: 'true'
pipelines:
  branches:
    develop:
      - step: 
        <<: *deployToECS
        deployment: development

 PS: The question editor here removes spacing when I paste my file contents so indentation might not be correct here.

However, the pipeline works if I change the step to reuse the anchor inline:

pipelines:
  branches:
    develop:
      - step: *deployToECS
        deployment: development

This "works" but I can not override variables with the deployment specific variables in this case. 

Any suggestions would be helpful.

[lephleg]

Same issue here. When using overrides the pipeline reports "Step is empty, null or missing"

[lephleg]

@warmannj Solved it. It was a matter of indentation indeed.

Notice the extra indent inside - step:

pipelines:
  branches:
    develop:
      - step: 
          <<: *deployToECS
          deployment: development

[Matt Hudson]

Same for me.

[Simone Scardoni]

Thanks you!

[Pawel]

Thanks, that was that. It's incredible that Bitbucket Pipelines - Validator (atlassian.io) is so bad it doesn't catch absolutely any errors; Every time I reconfigure my pipeline mu spend around 10 commits till I get it right :/

[Adam Sambridge]

Yes it's extremely poor. The official Atlassian vscode plugin has a bitbucket pipeline validator, which is also extremely poor in more interesting ways - it flags stuff as errors which is not, and also misses all the errors which get thrown after you've committed the change and try and run a pipeline. I've been working with bitbucket pipelines for a few weeks now, and it's a terrible experience to be honest. There are so many things which are basic, simple functions that are just not supported in bitbucket pipelines but standard in other CI/CD or GitOps platforms. There are hundreds of tickets open on the official JIRA repo for BCLOUD suggestions, some with hundeds or even thousands of upvotes to add in these basic features and virtually zero activity from the devs at Atlassian, most of them are years old and are not even assigned to anyone. It's so poor, I'd never choose this platform for anything, there are so many better alternatives

[John Peterson]

I have the same problem anyone find a way to do this?  i have tried the <<: *deployToECS way it validates but then when pipelines build says its invalid...

[Matt Hudson]

Me too.

[YY Brother]