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-date: 2010-09-27T00:00:00Z

-summary: In which I introduce Jitterbug.

-title: jitterbug - a first step to continuous integration for Perl modules on GitHub

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-

-> If you'd like to be a jitter bug,

-> First thing you must do is get a jug,

-> Put whiskey, wine and gin within,

-> And shake it all up and then begin.

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-Earlier this month sukria set up a [shell script](http://github.com/sukria/capsule) to run the Dancer's tests suit. The script is simple, but does what we want:

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-* every 15 minutes, it pulls from the github repository

-* for every perl installed via perlbrew, it executes the tests suite

-* it stores the results in text file

-* finally, it creates a code coverage report for the master branch

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-The only problem I had with this is that it wasn't really easy to find the appropriate test report you might want to check.

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-That's when I decided to write an interface to this: [jitterbug](https://github.com/franckcuny/jitterbug).

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-## Demo

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-[You can check Dancer's version](http://jitterbug.perldancer.org/). The interface is really simple: there's a list of repositories, the status of the last build, and a link to a list of all the project's builds.

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-<center>!/imgs/jitterbug.webp(jitterbug)!</center>

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-## How it works

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-For each project you want to use with jitterbug, you set the url of the HTTP hook in the administration page of your project. Each time a push is detected, GH will send you a notification (you can see details of the content). If the project doesn't already exist in your setup, it will be created, so you don't need to maintain or update a configuration file each time you create a new repository. The notification creates a task in a queue, and a script pulls the task and executes it.

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-> If you don't want anyone to use your setup for building their modules, you can protect the **/hook/** path with a .htaccess, and use the following kind of url : http://user:pass@.../

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-The script (`builder.pl`, provided with JB) will clone the repository, switch to the given commit and run the tests. It works both with classic distribution having a Makefile.PL and Dist::Zilla setups. The output is stored on the disk and some information about the project will be updated. [You can see the result for Dancer](http://jitterbug.perldancer.org/project/Dancer).

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-This script relies on two important things: [perlbrew](http://github.com/gugod/App-perlbrew) and [cpanminus](http://github.com/miyagawa/cpanminus). So your tests will be executed against every Perl version you have installed and thanks to cpanminus, all the deps will be installed too.

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-If the test fails, a mail is sent to the author.

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-## What's next

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-A list of some features I want to have:

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-* IRC notifications (something like: [author's name]: link to the commit - commit message - link to the build)

-* customizable builder script (so you can add your own hook to building a package, having private notifications, etc.)

-* simple administration (restart a build, etc.)

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-(thanks to [sawyer](http://github.com/xsawyerx) and [sukria](http://github.com/sukria/)).