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Basics of bitrise.yml

A bare minimal bitrise.yml is as simple as:

format_version: 1.3.1

This configuration is valid, everything else is optional, but does not include anything to execute, there's nothing to run.

A minimal configuration which you can bitrise run:

format_version: 1.3.1
workflows:
  test:

This configuration can be executed with bitrise run test, and the bitrise CLI won't give you any errors, but of course there's still nothing declared to do.

Let's continue with our example from the previous guide, which executes a single Script step when you run it with bitrise run test, and talk about what's what in the configuration:

format_version: 1.3.1
default_step_lib_source: https://github.com/bitrise-io/bitrise-steplib.git

app:
  envs:
  - MY_NAME: My Name

workflows:
  test:
    steps:
    - script@1.1.3:
        inputs:
        - content: echo "Hello ${MY_NAME}!"

A quick walk through of this sample configuration:

  • format_version : this property declares the minimum Bitrise CLI format version. You can get your Bitrise CLI's supported highest format version with: bitrise version --full. If you set the format_version to 1.3.1 that means that Bitrise CLI versions which don't support the format version 1.3.1 or higher won't be able to run the configuration. This is important if you use features which are not available in older Bitrise CLI versions.
  • default_step_lib_source : specifies the source to use when no other source is defined for a step. More info a bit later, in the - script@1.1.3: step description.
  • app - envs : the app: envs: section specifies Environment Variables which will be available for every build, every workflow, every step.
  • workflows : the workflows section is the collection of separate build configurations which you can run with bitrise run WORKFLOWID. In this example the only workflow is test, which you can perform with bitrise run test. If you'd have a second workflow called main, you could run both bitrise run test and bitrise run main.
  • steps: : the list of steps which should be executed when the workflow is performed. In this example the test workflow includes only a single script step. If more than one step is declared, the steps are performed one by one, after each other.
  • - script@1.1.3: : a step (reference) to perform. This reference does not have a "StepLib Source" declaration, which means that the default_step_lib_source will be used as the StepLib Source. For more information check the Step reference section of the Steps guide.
  • inputs: : the inputs you want to specify for the given step. A step can have many inputs, but you only have to specify those in the bitrise.yml which you want to set/overwrite. For more information see the Steps documentation.
  • - content: : the input we want to set. In this example we only wanted to specify the Content of the Script step, all other inputs are irrelevant.
  • echo "Hello ${MY_NAME}!" : this is the value we specified for the content input.

Read on to learn more about how you can use multiple workflows, define multiple steps to execute for a given workflow and for more advanced concepts. You'll be able to define your perfect automation configuration in no time!