---
title: "Continuous Integration for Drupal 8 with CircleCI"
url: "/articles/continuous-integration-drupal-8-circleci"
type: article
date: 2018-01-17
updated: 2019-10-14
---

# Continuous Integration for Drupal 8 with CircleCI

#  Continuous Integration for Drupal 8 with CircleCI 

 On how to run tests, check coding standards, view test coverage, and test database updates every time someone pushes changes to a Drupal 8 project. Run one command and start building right away.

 By

 [  Juampy NR   ](/about/juampy-nr) 

 January 17, 2018

  

This article is the first in a series about different [Continuous Integration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_integration) implementations for Drupal 8 projects. Each installment will pick a CI technology and go over its pros and cons for implementing the following set of jobs when someone creates a pull request:

- Run unit and kernel tests.
- Generate a PHPUnit coverage report.
- Check Drupal's coding standards.
- Update the database and run Behat tests.

In this article, we will start with [CircleCI](https://circleci.com/), a SaaS platform. Thanks to work initiated by Andrew Berry at [drupal\_tests](https://github.com/deviantintegral/drupal_tests)—if you maintain a Drupal 8 module, check it out—I can present you a [single-command installer](https://github.com/Lullabot/drupal9ci) to get your Drupal 8 project started with Continuous Integration using CircleCI.

There is a repository that contains the [installer script](https://github.com/Lullabot/drupal9ci) where we are working on the different CI implementations, plus a [demo Drupal project](https://github.com/juampynr/d8cidemo) to see them in action.

## Setup

Here is a clip where I take a vanilla Drupal 8 project created with [composer-project](https://github.com/drupal-composer/drupal-project), I run the installer and commit the files, and when I allow CircleCI to watch the repository I see the jobs running:

For details on how to run the installation script and connect your repository with CircleCI, have a look at the [repository's](https://github.com/Lullabot/drupal9ci) README.

## Killer features

Once you have the setup in place, your project will benefit right away from the following features:

## Less infrastructure to maintain

When code is pushed to a GitHub repository, CircleCI takes care of spinning up and tearing down containers for each of the jobs that you have defined in the [CircleCI configuration file](https://github.com/Lullabot/drupal9ci/blob/master/dist/.circleci/config.yml). CircleCI provides a set of [pre-built images](https://circleci.com/docs/2.0/circleci-images/) for you to use on your project but you can use a custom Docker image if you need it. For example, here is the [Dockerfile](https://github.com/Lullabot/drupal9ci/blob/master/.circleci/images/primary/Dockerfile) that the installer script uses:

```
# This is the parent image, located at https://hub.docker.com/_/drupal
FROM drupal:8.4-apache

# Install libraries and extensions.
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
  imagemagick \
  libmagickwand-dev \
  mariadb-client \
  sudo \
  vim \
  wget \
  && docker-php-ext-install mysqli \
  && docker-php-ext-install pdo \
  && docker-php-ext-install pdo_mysql

# Remove the vanilla Drupal project that comes with the parent image.
RUN rm -rf /var/www/html/*

# Change docroot since we use Composer's drupal-project.
RUN sed -ri -e 's!/var/www/html!/var/www/html/web!g' /etc/apache2/sites-available/*.conf
RUN sed -ri -e 's!/var/www!/var/www/html/web!g' /etc/apache2/apache2.conf /etc/apache2/conf-available/*.conf

# Install composer.
RUN wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/composer/getcomposer.org/f3333f3bc20ab8334f7f3dada808b8dfbfc46088/web/installer -O - -q | php -- --quiet
RUN mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

# Put a turbo on composer.
RUN composer global require hirak/prestissimo

# Install XDebug.
RUN pecl install xdebug-2.5.5 \
    && docker-php-ext-enable xdebug

# Install Robo CI.
# @TODO replace the following URL by http://robo.li/robo.phar when the Robo team fixes it.
RUN wget https://github.com/consolidation/Robo/releases/download/1.1.5/robo.phar
RUN chmod +x robo.phar && mv robo.phar /usr/local/bin/robo

# Install Dockerize.
ENV DOCKERIZE_VERSION v0.6.0
RUN wget https://github.com/jwilder/dockerize/releases/download/$DOCKERIZE_VERSION/dockerize-linux-amd64-$DOCKERIZE_VERSION.tar.gz \
    && tar -C /usr/local/bin -xzvf dockerize-linux-amd64-$DOCKERIZE_VERSION.tar.gz \
    && rm dockerize-linux-amd64-$DOCKERIZE_VERSION.tar.gz

# Install ImageMagic to take screenshots.
RUN pecl install imagick \
    && docker-php-ext-enable imagick
```

## Status badges

By adding a CircleCI status badge to your project’s README file, you can check whether the main branch is stable or not:

   

   

 ![Status badge](/sites/default/files/styles/wide_xs/public/assets/2017-12/badge.png.webp?itok=8ERDFzCJ "badge.png")

This is useful when creating a new release. If the badge is red, then you need to investigate what’s going on. Beware, [there is an open bug in CircleCI](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/workflow-status-badge-and-e-mail-support/14818/8) that may display the green PASSED badge even when one of the jobs in a workflow has failed. Until this gets fixed, click on the badge to double check that everything passes.

## Version control

CircleCI’s jobs [live within the project repository](https://github.com/juampynr/d8cidemo/tree/master/.circleci) under the `.circleci` directory, which makes it easy to track changes in the jobs and make them evolve along with the project.

## Intelligent reporting

CircleCI is intelligent at presenting job artifacts. Here are some screenshots:

### **Failed tests**

By storing test results as artifacts, CircleCI can parse them and present them in the browser:

   

   

 ![Failed tests](/sites/default/files/styles/wide_xs/public/assets/2017-12/failed-tests.png.webp?itok=kpSZabQo "failed-tests.png")

### **Links to screenshots taken by Behat**

By using the [Behat Screenshot](https://github.com/elvetemedve/behat-screenshot) extension and storing the screenshots as job artifacts, we can see them as a list of links in the browser:

   

   

 ![Behat screenshots](/sites/default/files/styles/wide_xs/public/assets/2017-12/screenshots.png.webp?itok=qBFddmjc "screenshots.png")

Here is what we see when we click on the highlighted link above:

   

   

 ![Drupal screenshot](/sites/default/files/styles/wide_xs/public/assets/2017-12/drupal-screenshot.png.webp?itok=mYQBMfUo "drupal-screenshot.png")

### **Coding standard violations**

CircleCI can parse the Code Sniffer report and present a summary of [Drupal coding standard](https://www.drupal.org/docs/develop/standards/coding-standards) violations:

   

   

 ![Coding standards](/sites/default/files/styles/wide_xs/public/assets/2017-12/coding-stds.png.webp?itok=732E1Wc7 "coding-stds.png")

### **Test coverage reports**

By generating an HTML PHPUnit report and exposing it as an artifact, we can see a link to the report at the CircleCI web interface:

   

   

 ![Coverage result](/sites/default/files/styles/wide_xs/public/assets/2017-12/coverage.png.webp?itok=JCzi4nZU "coverage.png")

The highlighted link above shows the following report which describes how much of the code is covered by tests:

   

   

 ![Coverage report](/sites/default/files/styles/wide_xs/public/assets/2017-12/coverage-report.png.webp?itok=kY2sI-Ug "coverage-report.png")

## Running CircleCI jobs locally

CircleCI offers a [command line interface](https://circleci.com/docs/2.0/local-jobs/) for running jobs locally. This is a big time saver as it gives you a chance to test and debug a job locally before pushing your changes.

   

   

 ![CircleCI command line interface](/sites/default/files/styles/wide_xs/public/assets/2017-12/circleci-cli.png.webp?itok=221yoDY0 "circleci-cli.png")

## Ready to take off!

Do you have a Drupal 8 project and want to try Continuous Integration with CircleCI? If so, follow the instructions at the [Drupal8CI](https://github.com/Lullabot/drupal9ci) repository and start writing tests and getting the jobs to pass. If you find issues or add improvements, please either post a comment here or contribute them to the repository. Happy CI-ing!

## Acknowledgements

- [Andrew Berry](https://www.lullabot.com/about/andrew-berry), for teaching me so much about Docker and CircleCI.
- [James Sansbury](https://www.lullabot.com/about/james-sansbury), for his editorial and technical feedback, plus his Bash-fu.
- The Draco team at [Turner](http://www.turner.com), for allowing me to add continuous integration to their development workflow.

 Published in:

- [  Drupal Development   ](/topics/drupal-development)

 

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