[Feature Request] Options to use colcon user configuration override

[seanyen]

Description

As of this writing, action-ros-ci composes and executes colcon tasks in the following order:

• colcon mixin add default <repo> (optional)
• colcon build
• colcon lcov-result --initial
• colcon test
• colcon lcov-result

Beyond the common flow, action-ros-ci synthesizes default parameters to some tasks. For example, --event-handlers console_cohesion+ --symlink-install always goes to colcon build. And when it comes to customize the tasks, typically it exposes the options case-by-case, for example, it currently takes extra-cmake-args for developers to customize the --cmake-args for colcon build.

On the other side, colcon has a user configuration concept, where developers can define a YAML file to describe what arguments should go to colcon command by default. For example, if I have the following file defined and specified in %COLCON_DEFAULTS_FILE%,

# defaults.yaml
{
    "build": {
        "symlink-install": true,
        "cmake-args": [
            "-G",
            "Ninja",
            "-DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=d:/install",
            "-DCATKIN_SKIP_TESTING=ON",
            "-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release"],
        "event-handlers": ["console_cohesion+"],
        "install-base": "d:/install",
        "parallel-workers" : 1,
        "merge-install": true
    }
}

Then, whenever I run colcon build, those arguments will be automatically applied to my build task. This approach gives much more flexible to extend the colcon common flow without maintaining many parameter interfaces.

I am proposing that we can have a built-in defaults.yaml to capture all the good default parameters that we have today. And it exposes a new parameter, for example, colcon-defaults-file which is for developers to override the default settings and to use their customized one. I envision that could be something like:

    - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@master
      with:
        package-name: abc_package
        colcon-defaults-file: ${{ github.workspace }}/defaults.yaml

Related Issues

#89

[piraka9011]

This is a reasonable enhancement.
Some questions:

• Can this file also be hosted in a gist or should this be local to the repo it's running in only?
• Would it be better to add this feature to setup-ros-docker and improve that as well?

[seanyen]

• Can this file also be hosted in a gist or should this be local to the repo it's running in only?

I don't think colcon can take a URL here: https://github.com/colcon/colcon-defaults/blob/78f808ef9705a15a52d00b0adfee342d1390b348/colcon_defaults/argument_parser/defaults.py#L72

But I think developers can add another step before using this action to copy their gist?

• Would it be better to add this feature to setup-ros-docker and improve that as well?

Interesting. Can you elaborate more on what's the improvement you envision?

[piraka9011]

I don't think colcon can take a URL here: https://github.com/colcon/colcon-defaults/blob/78f808ef9705a15a52d00b0adfee342d1390b348/colcon_defaults/argument_parser/defaults.py#L72

What I meant is doing something similar to action-ros-ci where we allow users to pass a file or a URL (see this for example).

Interesting. Can you elaborate more on what's the improvement you envision?

Thought you might have some insight as to whether there would have to be a docker specific implementation if we want to add this feature to a docker action.

[seanyen]

What I meant is doing something similar to action-ros-ci where we allow users to pass a file or a URL (see this for example).

Ah sure. That's something doable.