Webhooks in Kraken CI for GitHub, GitLab and Gitea

Kraken CI is a new Continuous Integration tool. It is a modern, open-source, on-premise CI/CD system that is highly scalable and focused on testing. It is licensed under Apache 2.0 license. Its source code is available on Kraken CI GitHub page.

This tutorial is the third installment of the series of articles about Kraken CI. Part 1, Kraken CI, New Kid on the CI block, presented the installation of Kraken. The second part covered how to prepare a workflow for a simple Python project. The last one was about autoscaling on AWS and Azure.

This time we would like to show the latest feature that was developed in Kraken CI: webhooks for GitHub, GitLab and Gitea.

Intro to Webhooks

Kraken CI allows triggering a flow of a branch in a project using a
webhook in a Git hosting service. A push to a regular branch e.g. main
branch or to a branch associated with a pull or a merge request will cause
a Git hosting service to call a webhook exposed by Kraken CI. To make
it happen a webhook URL and a secret have to be stored in a project
settings in Git hosting service.

Currenty there are support the following Git hosting services:

• GitHub
• GitLab
• Gitea

The following guide shows how to configure webhooks: 1) how to enable
them in a project in Kraken CI and then 2) how to set a webhook URL and
a secret in Git hosting service. In the end, the usage of webhooks
will be presented by doing a push to Git repository.

Enable Webhooks in a Project

In Kraken CI go to your project page and switch to WebHooks
tab. There are available webhooks for several Git hosting services.
Enable the one that you are using for hosting your Git repository.
Enabled webhooks show an actuall webhook URL and a secret. These
information should be copied and set in you webhooks setting page in
your Git hosting service.

Set Webhook URL in Git Hosting Service

The following sections show how to set webhook URL to Kraken CI, a
secret that is used to authenticate and they show which event types
should be selected that will trigger a new flow in you Kraken CI
project.

GitHub

The arrows on the picture above indicate where the webhook URL and the
secret from your Kraken CI project should be pasted on your GitHub
repository webhooks settings page. In case of GitHub two event types
should be selected:

• Pull Requests - they will trigger DEV flows in you Kraken CI project, in a branch indicated in the event
• Pushes - they will trigger CI flows in you Kraken CI project, in a branch indicated in the event

GitLab

The arrows on the picture above indicate where the webhook URL and the
secret from your Kraken CI project should be pasted on your GitLab
repository webhooks settings page. In case of GitLab two event
types should be selected:

• Push events - they will trigger CI flows in you Kraken CI project, in a branch indicated in the event
• Merge Request events - they will trigger DEV flows in you Kraken CI project, in a branch indicated in the event

Gitea

The arrows on the picture above indicate where the webhook URL and the
secret from your Kraken CI project should be pasted on your Gitea
repository webhooks settings page. In case of GitLab two event
types should be selected:

• Push - they will trigger CI flows in you Kraken CI project, in a branch indicated in the event
• Pull Request and Pull Request Synchronized - they will trigger DEV flows in you Kraken CI project, in a branch indicated in the event

Trigger a Flow

Now, in your a folder with source code repository you may invoke git push command:

$ git push

This should trigger a new flow in CI branch in you Kraken CI project.

If you create a new branch, do some commits to it, then push this new
branch, and then create a pull request (PR) or merge request (MR) in
your Git hosting service UI, then all this will trigger a new DEV flow
that is a base branch for the PR or MR:

$ git checkout -b my-branch
$ git push --set-upstream origin my-branch

That's it!