"Unable to parse variable name" - Errors too generic with no debug information

[JasterV]

Hello there,

I am new to woodpecker and I am using it because I am migrating from Github to Codeberg.

I've created the following workflows: https://codeberg.org/JasterV/jaster.xyz/src/branch/main/.woodpecker

But when I push and Woodpecker tries to run them, I get a very vague error as follows:

I've executed the woodpecker cli linter to see if something was wrong in the definition of the workflow but the linter passed.

Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks!

[qwerty287]

Yes, the error handling is not good. Also see #4376.

I think - I didn't test - in your case the issue are these lines: https://codeberg.org/JasterV/jaster.xyz/src/branch/main/.woodpecker/.deploy.yml#L27-L29

This is parsed for variable substitution, but as you have {{ instead of { it fails (variable substitution runs on the whole file, including comments etc.). I think the linter completely misses the substitution. See https://woodpecker-ci.org/docs/usage/environment#string-substitution.

And two more notes for your configs:

1. If the files are inside the .woodpecker folder, they don't have to be hidden. I'd name them .ci.yaml -> ci.yaml
2. I don't think installing like this will work https://codeberg.org/JasterV/jaster.xyz/src/branch/main/.woodpecker/.deploy.yml#L14. Woodpecker uses separate containers, and only the workspace is synced between the containers. I guess the install script will install it to some system location, so it won't be available in the next container. You would have to do that in one container. (I can be wrong about the install script though)

[JasterV]

Alright thank you this was very insightful!