Unlocking the Power of Pipelines in Mendix

Are you finding the manual deployment process, such as building packages, deploying them, and performing pre-production testing, both time-consuming and repetitive?

To address this challenge, Mendix has introduced a new feature: Mendix Pipelines. This capability is designed to streamline and automate the entire deployment workflow, significantly reducing the need for manual intervention while enhancing efficiency and reliability.

In this blog post, we break down how to set up and use Mendix Pipelines. The best part? No prior DevOps experience is required to get started.

Note: Pipelines can only be created for licensed applications deployed on the Mendix Cloud.

This guide will cover the following:

• Designing a Mendix Pipeline
• Running a Mendix Pipeline
• Viewing Pipeline Execution Results

Designing a Mendix Pipeline:

To begin designing a Mendix pipeline, open any licensed application within your Mendix environment. Navigate to the Pipelines section in the application menu.

If no pipelines have been created previously for the selected app, you will be presented with the initial setup screen, as shown below.

Click on the Design a Pipeline button to initiate the pipeline creation process. You will be presented with two options:

• Use a Sample Template – This option provides a predefined pipeline with a few configured steps, allowing for a quicker setup.
• Start with an Empty Pipeline – This option enables you to create a pipeline from scratch, offering complete flexibility to define each step as needed.

Let us begin by designing a pipeline using an existing template.

Start by providing a valid name for your pipeline, such as UAT Release. Once the name is entered, click the Next button to proceed to the following step.

Pipeline will be loaded with predefined steps like Start Pipeline, Checkout, Build, Publish, and Deploy.

The pipeline name can be changed from this screen as well. Click on the three dots next to your pipeline name to do that.

The pipeline name can also be changed from this screen. To do so, click the three dots next to your pipeline name. Select the Edit Name option from the dropdown menu. A pop-up window will appear, enter the new pipeline name, and click Update to save the changes.

Now, we will begin defining each step included in the sample template. Let’s start with the Start Pipeline step.

Step1:

Start Pipeline:

The Start Pipeline step is a mandatory component in every pipeline you design. It defines when the pipeline should be triggered. You can choose from the following options:

• Team Server Push (Git): The pipeline is triggered automatically whenever a new build is pushed to the branch specified in the Branch Expression.
• Recurring Schedule: The pipeline is triggered weekly at a specified time. Please note that the time must be provided in UTC.
• Manual Trigger: The user must start the pipeline manually.

Branch Expression:

To trigger the pipeline on a specific branch, enter the exact name of that branch. If you want the pipeline to trigger on multiple branches, you can use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard in the expression. The asterisk represents “zero or more characters.”

Examples of valid branch expressions:

• main – Matches the branch named “main”
• * – Matches all branches
• main* – Matches all branches that start with “main”
• *main – Matches all branches that end with “main”

Important notes:

• Branch expressions are case-sensitive.
• White spaces are allowed within the expression.
• Avoid using multiple asterisks (e.g., **main is invalid).
• Do not place the asterisk between characters or words (e.g., main*main is invalid).

Step2:

Checkout:

Choose the branch you want to deploy from the repository. Use the dropdown to select the appropriate branch.

Step 3:

Build: From the dropdown menu, select the type of version increment: Major, Minor, Patch, or None. The version number will increase based on the highest priority chosen. Provide additional build details in the Description tab.

Step 4:

Publish:

This step will automatically use the previously built deployment package and prepare it for publishing to the selected environment.

Step 5:

Deploy:

Select the target environment from the dropdown to deploy the previously built package. The “Use default values for new constants” toggle is enabled by default, and it applies to the default constant values configured in Mendix Studio Pro.

After completing all setup updates, click the “Save and Activate” button to activate the pipeline.

Newly created pipelines will appear on the Pipeline Overview page.

To run or activate a pipeline, the user must configure a Personal Access Token and an API key under the Settings tab. This one-time setup applies to all pipelines.

Running a Mendix Pipeline:

Click the “Run Manual Pipeline” button to trigger a manual pipeline. A pop-up will appear with a dropdown menu, allowing you to select from the available manual pipelines.

Click the “Run Now” button to trigger the pipeline manually.
Other trigger options, such as Team Server push and recurring schedules, will execute automatically based on the configured settings.

Viewing Pipeline Execution Results:

Once the pipeline execution is complete, the status will be updated on the same Overview page.

To view detailed information, click the Note icon. Logs for each step can be accessed by expanding the corresponding tab.

So far, we’ve covered how to create a basic pipeline using an existing template, how to run it, and how to review the execution results.
In our next blog post, we’ll explore how to design a new pipeline using the Empty Pipeline option.