Updating the sandbox

We use the same Flatpak manifest for both the development environment sandbox and for the nightly build snapshot.

To have the CI run the tests as fast as possible, we use a Docker image with all the sandbox dependencies cached. This image needs to be updated whenever we want to update the manifest, otherwise the CI fails since it can't download the latest dependencies.

Update the flatpak runtime

To update the flatpak runtime version, look in org.pitivi.Pitivi.json for the current version:

    "runtime-version": "43",

Check out what is the latest flatpak runtime version. For example:

$ flatpak remote-ls flathub --system | grep org.gnome.Platform
GNOME Application Platform version 3.38	org.gnome.Platform		3.38
GNOME Application Platform version 45	org.gnome.Platform		45
GNOME Application Platform version 46	org.gnome.Platform		46

Download the latest:

$ flatpak install org.gnome.Sdk/x86_64/46

Check out in the git history how we updated the runtime version in the past and repeat with the latest SDK.

Update the sandbox dependencies

Some of them can be updated automatically with flatpak-external-data-checker:

$ flatpak run --filesystem=$HOME/dev/pitivi/pitivi org.flathub.flatpak-external-data-checker build/flatpak/org.pitivi.Pitivi.json --update --edit-only

Create a commit with the automatically changed deps.

$ git commit -a -m "build: Update deps with flatpak-external-data-checker"

Other deps have to be checked and updated manually.

Check the Python version

Check the Python version in the sandbox. For example, last time it was:

$ flatpak run --user --command=bash --devel org.gnome.Sdk/x86_64/46
[📦 org.gnome.Sdk ~]$ python --version
Python 3.11.9

When the Python version changes, update the /app/lib/python3.11 occurrences in the flatpak manifest and also update the Python dependencies.

When updating pylint, make a separate commit to fix the issues it complains about:

(ptv-flatpak) $ ptvenv pre-commit run -a pylint

Sync with flathub

Check if any changes to the flathub Pitivi manifest need to be ported over.

In particular, pay attention to the shared-modules git submodule to copy libcanberra into build/flatpak.

Rebuild your local dev env

$ . bin/pitivi-env
(ptv-flatpak) $ ptvenv --update

Run the tests:

(ptv-flatpak) $ ptvtests

If all goes well, push the branch to origin to be able to initiate the generation of the CI image.

$ git checkout -b sdk
$ git push origin sdk

Build the CI image

The "Build docker image for the CI" GitLab Schedule rebuilds every 24h the image we use for running the unittests. This image caches the build of dependencies described in our Flatpak manifest.

Since it's using the "master" branch, you have to create a new schedule and select the branch you just pushed ("sdk"). Leave Active unchecked.

Go back to the Schedules page and click the Play button of the schedule you just created to start a pipeline. Notice in the Last Pipeline column a link to the pipeline you just started.

After the pipeline succeeds, create a regular MR with your manifest changes and notice the CI is green. If you fail to merge the MR, the "Build docker image for the CI" will kick in later and recreate the image according to the manifest on branch "master".