Ambient CI notes

2025-06-30

I been exploring Ambient CI for some weeks now, for use with Radicle.

Install deps (see project README)
Install Ambient (it is a Rust project, but Debian packages are also available)
Create OS user (adduser rad-ci)
Add that user (CI user) to kvm group (adduer rad-ci kvm)
Install Rust toolchain with rustup
Create directoroy in CI user home, srv
Download a QEMU image which will provide an isolated environment where the CI runs

Create Ambient config in it, "/home/rad-ci/srv/ambient-ci.yaml"

image: /home/rad-ci/ambient.qcow2
logdir: /home/rad-ci/srv/http/ambient-log
log: /home/rad-ci/srv/ambient-ci.log
base_url: http://localhost:8080/ambient-log

Create CI broker config, also in the same dir, "/home/rad-ci/srv/ci-broker.yaml"

db: /home/rad-ci/srv/ci-broker.db
report_dir: /home/rad-ci/srv/http
queue_len_interval: 1min
adapters:
  ambient:
    command: /bin/radicle-ci-ambient
    env:
      RADICLE_CI_AMBIENT: /home/rad-ci/srv/ambient-ci.yaml
      RADICLE_CI_BROKER_WEBROOT: /home/rad-ci/srv/pages/ci-broker
      PATH: /bin:/usr/local/bin:/home/rad-ci/.cargo/bin
triggers:
  - adapter: ambient
    filters:
    - !And
      # Run CI when repo has this file
      - !HasFile ".radicle/ambient.yaml"
      - !Or
        - !DefaultBranch
        - !PatchCreated
        - !PatchUpdated
      # Rust CI when any of the above 3 events originated from this node
      - !Node z6MkfPSKW7AgQqXSi8fgEJMduHpm9ABmsPYwPhMeF7PssonK

Create Radicle node for CI user (sudo --user rad-ci rad auth)
Start Radicle node for CI user (sudo --user rad-ci rad node start)
Seed repos that are to be watched for CI action (sudo --user rad-ci rad seed $RID), where example $RID is z495gX4yCu5U8PmWBNiGHWEn9wBuz, my blog

Run Ambient

sudo --login --user rad-ci \
  cib \
  --config srv/ci-broker.yaml \
  --log-level info \
  process-events

Watch logs

sudo --login --user rad-ci tail -F srv/ambient-ci.lo

Ensure some repo on node listed in CI broker config has as ".radicle/ambient.yaml" file, trigger CI action, and watch the logs.