Get started and create your first batch change in 10 minutes or less.
In this guide, you'll create a Sourcegraph batch change that appends text to all README.md
files in all of your repositories.
For more information about Batch Changes see the "Batch Changes" documentation and watch the Batch Changes demo video.
- A Sourcegraph instance with some repositories in it. See "Quick install" on how to set up a Sourcegraph instance.
- A local environment matching "Requirements" to create batch changes with the Sourcegraph CLI.
In order to create batch changes we need to install the Sourcegraph CLI (src
).
-
Install the version of
src
that's compatible with your Sourcegraph instance:macOS:
curl -L https://YOUR-SOURCEGRAPH-INSTANCE/.api/src-cli/src_darwin_amd64 -o /usr/local/bin/src chmod +x /usr/local/bin/src
Linux:
curl -L https://YOUR-SOURCEGRAPH-INSTANCE/.api/src-cli/src_linux_amd64 -o /usr/local/bin/src chmod +x /usr/local/bin/src
-
Authenticate
src
with your Sourcegraph instance by runningsrc login
and following the instructions:src login https://YOUR-SOURCEGRAPH-INSTANCE
Once src login
reports that you're authenticated, we're ready for the next step.
A batch spec is a YAML file that defines a batch change. It specifies which changes should be made in which repositories and how those should be published on the code host.
See the "batch spec YAML reference" for details.
Save the following batch spec as hello-world.batch.yaml
:
name: hello-world
description: Add Hello World to READMEs
# Find all repositories that contain a README.md file.
on:
- repositoriesMatchingQuery: file:README.md
# In each repository, run this command. Each repository's resulting diff is captured.
steps:
- run: echo Hello World | tee -a $(find -name README.md)
container: alpine:3
# Describe the changeset (e.g., GitHub pull request) you want for each repository.
changesetTemplate:
title: Hello World
body: My first batch change!
branch: hello-world # Push the commit to this branch.
commit:
message: Append Hello World to all README.md files
published: false
Let's see the changes that will be made. Don't worry---no commits, branches, or changesets will be published yet (the repositories on your code host will be untouched).
-
In your terminal, run this command:
src batch preview -f hello-world.batch.yaml
-
Wait for it to run and compute the changes for each repository.
-
When it's done, click the displayed link to see all of the changes that will be made.
-
If you want to modify which changes are made, edit the
hello-world.batch.yaml
file, rerun thesrc batch preview
command and open the newly generated preview URL.NOTE: If you want to run the batch change on fewer repositories, change the
repositoriesMatchingQuery
inhello-world.batch.yaml
to something likefile:README.md repo:myproject
(to only match repositories whose name containsmyproject
). -
Click the Apply spec button to create the batch change. You should see something like this:
You created your first batch change! The batch change's changesets are still unpublished, which means they exist only on Sourcegraph and haven't been pushed to your code host yet.
So far, nothing has been created on the code hosts yet. For that to happen, we need to publish the changesets in our batch change.
Publishing causes commits, branches, and pull requests/merge requests to be created on your code host.
You probably don't want to publish these toy "Hello World" changesets to actively developed repositories, because that might confuse people ("Why did you add this line to our READMEs?").
Since Batch Changes need write permissions to open changesets, you might need to add a personal access token for each code host you'll be publishing changesets on. This is a one time operation that you don't need to do for each batch change. Administrators of your Sourcegraph instance can also configure global credentials, so you don't need to go through this process. The UI for configuring the tokens will tell you when there is a global token configured.
See "Configuring user credentials" for more detail on adding and removing user tokens beyond the quickstart below, or "Code host interactions in Batch Changes" for details on what the permissions are used for.
To add a personal access token:
- From any Sourcegraph page, click on your avatar at the top right of the page.
- Select Settings from the dropdown menu.
- Click Batch Changes on the sidebar menu.
- Click Add token next to the code host you want to configure.
- Go to the code host and create a personal access token with the exact scopes or permissions required, which are noted below the token text field. For more provider-specific detail, please refer to "GitHub", "GitLab", or "Bitbucket Server".
- Click Add token to save the token.
The red circle next to the code host will now change to a green tick. Sourcegraph has everything it needs to publish changesets to that code host!
Now that you have credentials set up, you can publish the changesets in the batch change. On a real batch change, you would do the following:
-
Change the
published: false
inhello-world.batch.yaml
topublished: true
.NOTE: Change
published
to an array to publish only some of the changesets, or set'draft'
to create changesets as drafts on code hosts that support drafts. -
On the preview page you can confirm that changesets will be published when the spec is applied.
-
Click the Apply spec button and those changesets will be published on the code host.
NOTE: You can also create or update a batch change by running
src batch apply
. This skips the preview stage, and is especially useful when updating an existing batch change.
NOTE: You can also publish directly from Sourcegraph by omitting the
published
field from your batch spec. This is described in more detail in "Publishing changesets to the code host".
You've created your first batch change! 🎉🎉
You can customize your batch spec and experiment with making other types of changes.
To update your batch change, edit hello-world.batch.yaml
and run src batch preview
again. (As before, you'll see a preview before any changes are applied.)
To learn what else you can do with Batch Changes, see "Batch Changes" in Sourcegraph documentation.