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Environment

In AskAnna, we run jobs using container engines. This means that we can run most of the images published on Docker Hub. Also, you can access private registries so that you can use custom images as well.

In the askanna.yml you can specify the environment that the project or job should use.

Configure environment

Public image

For example, when you want to use an image from Docker Hub, you can specify the image you want to use.

To set the default image for the project, specify the environment in the askanna.yml:

push-target: ...

environment:
  image: {IMAGE_NAME}

For the image name, you can provide the name. This will pull the image with tag latest. Optionally, you can specify the image tag:

environment:
  image: {IMAGE_NAME}:{IMAGE_TAG}

The above examples pull the image from Docker Hub. You can also pull an image from another registry by providing the full URL.

environment:
  image: registry.gitlab.com/askanna/demo/{IMAGE_NAME}:{IMAGE_TAG}

If you want to use an image specifically for a job, you can also specify the environment within the job configuration:

name of the job:
  environment:
    image: {IMAGE_NAME}:{IMAGE_TAG}
  job:
    - ...

Private image

We also support private registries that you can access with a username and password:

environment:  
  image: {IMAGE_NAME}:{IMAGE_TAG}
  credentials:
    username: {IMAGE_REGISTRY_USERNAME}
    password: {IMAGE_REGISTRY_PASSWORD}

We strongly advise not to add sensitive information like a password in the askanna.yml file. The best way is to save the password as a project variable. You can refer to the variable in the askanna.yml config.

Using the example above, you could add a masked project variable IMAGE_PASSWORD. This way, sensitive information does not get exposed to everyone with access to the project code.

GitLab registry

To access the GitLab registry, you need to have a deploy token, group deploy token or personal access token. We prefer the deploy token because it gives only access to the specific project.

Create deploy token

  1. Sign in to your GitLab account
  2. Go to the GitLab project you want to create a deploy token for
  3. Go to Settings > Repository
  4. Expand the Deploy tokens section
  5. Set a name, expiry date (optional), and username (optional) for the token
  6. Choose scope read_registry
  7. Click Create deploy token
  8. Save the deploy token as a project variable in AskAnna. After you leave or refresh the page, you can’t reaccess the token.
  9. Save the username as a project variable or in the askanna.yml configuration.

Get GitLab image name

The GitLab image registry URL and name can be found via:

  1. Go to your GitLab project or group
  2. Go to Packages & Registries > Container Registry
  3. Find the image you want to use, and copy the image name using the copy button

Add GitLab image in askanna.yml

Now you have all the information, to configure the environment in the askanna.yml file:

environment:  
  image: ${GITLAB IMAGE URL + NAME}
  credentials:
    username: ${GITLAB USERNAME}
    password: ${GITLAB TOKEN}

GitHub container

To access GitHub packages, you need to have an authentication token. With the image registry URL, image name and GitHub token, you can set up the project configuration in AskAnna.

At GitHub, you can only configure a personal access token. This means that everyone can use this token to access all the GitHub packages you have access too. Please keep this in mind.

Create GitHub token

  1. On GitHub.com in the upper-right corner, click the profile photo
  2. Go to Settings
  3. In the left sidebar, go to Developer settings
  4. In the left sidebar, go to Personal access tokens
  5. Click Generate new token
  6. Give your token a descriptive note
  7. Choose scope read:packages
  8. Click Generate token
  9. Save the personal access token as a project variable in AskAnna. After you leave or refresh the page, you can’t reaccess the token.

Get GitHub image name

GitHub container images are linked to the GitHub project.

  1. Go to the GitHub project
  2. In the right sidebar, go to Packages
  3. Find the image you want to use, and copy the image URL

Add GitLab image in askanna.yml

Now you have all the information, to configure the environment in the askanna.yml file:

environment:  
  image: ${GITHUB IMAGE URL + NAME}
  credentials:
    username: ${GITHUB USERNAME}
    password: ${GITHUB TOKEN}

AskAnna dependencies

To run a job in AskAnna, we need to have some tools available in the run environment. When you start a job, we will automatically check if the following packages are installed, and if not we will try to install them:

  • python3
  • python3-pip
  • curl
  • git
  • unzip
  • tzdata

Also, we try to install our Python package askanna. If we cannot install a dependency, the run will fail and in the run log you can find more information on why it failed.

Default environment

The default environment is AskAnna Python 3.7. Besides Python 3.7, we also installed:

  • curl
  • g++
  • git
  • tzdata
  • unzip
  • AskAnna CLI & SDK

You can find AskAnna environment images on Docker Hub > AskAnna. For example, the above installation with Python is also available for Python 3, Python 3.7, Python 3.8, Python 3.9, Python 3.10 and Python 3.11. The image names you can use are:

  • askanna/python:3
  • askanna/python:3.7
  • askanna/python:3.8
  • askanna/python:3.9
  • askanna/python:3.10
  • askanna/python:3.11

Cache

We cache images in AskAnna. The first time you run an image, it can take some time to run the specific job. AskAnna need some time to install the dependencies. After the dependencies are installed, we cache that version of the image. The next time the job runs, you will see a shorter duration.

Before running the job, we will always check if the project should have access to the image. For example, in case of a private image, the credentials should be valid. Using the image's digest, we also check if a newer version is available for the configured image. If yes, we will pull that image.

Caching makes runnings jobs in AskAnna faster. Every weekend we run a set of jobs so that we can cache populair images. Currently the images we pull and cache are based on:

We are not pulling all image tags for the above Docker projects. For the specific set of images we pull weekly, check this askanna.yml.