Start pipelines parallel steps if a condition is met

[LiveDuo]

Hi,

We are running a project that has a core app, a landing page and a back-end all in the same repository.

The project has 3 different parallel steps that runs for each of the parts ie. main app, landing page or back-end.

At the moment all 3 are triggered and there is a check that stops the repository if there are no changes in the respective folder.

There are 2 problems with this setup:

1. Each parallel step waste about 30 seconds of build time for no reason
2. The return status should be "Pipeline Succeeded" but the checks make the whole pipeline to fail

Ideally I'd want run the folder update checks once in the main step and start the parallel steps only if there are changes.

[Daniel Santos]

Hello @LiveDuo

That is an interesting scenario indeed.

I've run a search in our issue system and happened to find an improvement request already filed for this: #16560 - Trigger pipeline only if certain files are changed. I guess that would cover your case.

I guess you need this problem solved now and therefore I have an idea to share that might help you to reduce the issue you are facing, but it will require an extra configuration. You would need:

1. Create a custom pipeline for each deploy part.
2. Both master and develop branch steps would have to check what deploy should run (evaluating the source code changes)  and based on that decision call the custom step accordingly.

These are the references you can use to move forward with this idea:

• Configure bitbucket-pipelines.yml - custom pipeline
• Bitbucket API - Trigger a custom pipeline

Please keep in mind that you would still have at least 2 steps running so you would save ~30s in the best scenario and lose 30s if you have changes in all software parts. It worth only depending on how often you have changes in all of them.

Does it make sense to you?
Please share your comments/thoughts.